Karma
Heart Attack
My mother had to watch this video during her graduate studies. I remember how struck she was by the film. she talked about it for days afterward. I remember watching it for the first time myself a year or two later...it was wrenching to say the least. It's on tonight on Lifetime right now.
A white woman, a social worker, "Margaret" (Jessica Lange) has her world turned upside down when the black baby she adopted is reclaimed by his biological mother "Kahlia" (Halle Berry), who was a crack addict and lived in horrid conditions...she threw her baby away after giving birth to him.
In the movie, the Margaret takes a special interest in the baby and soon adopts it, while the baby's Kahlia r hits rock bottom after trying to steal some items from a store and is apprehended by police, they discover she has drugs on her person as well and she's taken to prison but ends up serving her time in a strict "halfway house".
As the Margaret bonds with little Isaiah, Kahlia slowly, but surely gets herself together. She gets her own place (modest as it is), she even finds spirituality. The problem comes when she seeks to reclaim her baby. A lengthy court battle ensues and it becomes vicious...as it changes from being about the well being of the baby to a BLACK vs. WHITE issue.
Eventually the court gives custody BACK to Kahlia and Margaret is devastated. The DCS people come for Isaiah and in that scene where he is taken from his adoptive mother, its really hard to watch as h e cries out for his mother, the only mother he's known.
Kahlia tries in vain to reach out to her son...he does not respond to her in the least...the adjustment doesnt come. Finally Kahlia calls Margaret and tells her that all sh e cares about is Isaiah and she wants whats best for him. She agrees to let Isaiah live with Margaret until he can better understand what's going on.
In the final scene, Kahlia and Margaret walk into Margaret's house together, they sit down to talk to each other quietly as Isaiah is seen playing on the floor contently.
This was a VERY gripping movie. It touched on a very hot button issue of interracial adoption and the many related issues. To this day, I have heard /read thoughts from people who take exception to the idea of a white woman adopting/raising a black child (even if the child is her own and he/she is racially mixed with a black father) Jessica Lange and Halle Berry both deliver powerfull yet vulnerable performances.
Has anyone else seen this film? What's your opinions of it?
I find it interesting that Halle herself, a bi-racial woman with a white mother and black father (who divorced when she was 4 years old) has stated in many public interviews that she is estranged from her father. She was raised by her mother, a white woman but she plays a character in this movie where the "taboo" topic of a black child being raised by a white mother is examined.
there have been other shows that have explored this topic to some degree such as "Diff'rent Strokes" where an affluent white man "Phillip Drumond" adopts two poor black children, "Arnold" and "Willis".
A white woman, a social worker, "Margaret" (Jessica Lange) has her world turned upside down when the black baby she adopted is reclaimed by his biological mother "Kahlia" (Halle Berry), who was a crack addict and lived in horrid conditions...she threw her baby away after giving birth to him.
In the movie, the Margaret takes a special interest in the baby and soon adopts it, while the baby's Kahlia r hits rock bottom after trying to steal some items from a store and is apprehended by police, they discover she has drugs on her person as well and she's taken to prison but ends up serving her time in a strict "halfway house".
As the Margaret bonds with little Isaiah, Kahlia slowly, but surely gets herself together. She gets her own place (modest as it is), she even finds spirituality. The problem comes when she seeks to reclaim her baby. A lengthy court battle ensues and it becomes vicious...as it changes from being about the well being of the baby to a BLACK vs. WHITE issue.
Eventually the court gives custody BACK to Kahlia and Margaret is devastated. The DCS people come for Isaiah and in that scene where he is taken from his adoptive mother, its really hard to watch as h e cries out for his mother, the only mother he's known.
Kahlia tries in vain to reach out to her son...he does not respond to her in the least...the adjustment doesnt come. Finally Kahlia calls Margaret and tells her that all sh e cares about is Isaiah and she wants whats best for him. She agrees to let Isaiah live with Margaret until he can better understand what's going on.
In the final scene, Kahlia and Margaret walk into Margaret's house together, they sit down to talk to each other quietly as Isaiah is seen playing on the floor contently.
This was a VERY gripping movie. It touched on a very hot button issue of interracial adoption and the many related issues. To this day, I have heard /read thoughts from people who take exception to the idea of a white woman adopting/raising a black child (even if the child is her own and he/she is racially mixed with a black father) Jessica Lange and Halle Berry both deliver powerfull yet vulnerable performances.
Has anyone else seen this film? What's your opinions of it?
I find it interesting that Halle herself, a bi-racial woman with a white mother and black father (who divorced when she was 4 years old) has stated in many public interviews that she is estranged from her father. She was raised by her mother, a white woman but she plays a character in this movie where the "taboo" topic of a black child being raised by a white mother is examined.
there have been other shows that have explored this topic to some degree such as "Diff'rent Strokes" where an affluent white man "Phillip Drumond" adopts two poor black children, "Arnold" and "Willis".
