Casa de Los Babys

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

John Sayles's heartrending new film is a many-splendoured thing.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Sayles accomplishes another of his coups here. Eschewing all sentiment, avoiding all pathos, keeping his film and most of the women hard as nails, he manages to tell a compelling story.

Miami Herald Connie Ogle

But Babys also resembles "Sunshine State" in another, more satisfying way: It leaves you longing to know what happens to these characters once the movie ends.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Babys is intellectually stimulating and emotionally stirring, a rare combination these days, though hardly unusual for writer/director John Sayles.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Sayles handles this material with gentle delicacy, as if aware that the issues are too fraught to be approached with simple messages.

Boston Globe Wesley Morris

Sayles seems to be trying, single-handedly, to correct centuries of First World self-centeredness in Third World contexts.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

If Casa de los Babys isn't necessarily a fully realized film, it's still a deeply felt glimpse into dizzyingly complex political and psychological forces that shape the most crucial decisions of a woman's life.

The New York Times Stephen Holden

Some of the pieces in its jigsaw puzzle are too fragmentary, and there's a sense of racing against time to fill in the blanks. Yet the movie's even-handed portrayal of two cultures uneasily transacting the most personal business resonates with truth.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Marcia Gay Harden is an angry vulgarian who steals shampoo off the maids' carts and bribes a lawyer to get her baby. Sayles may not have planned it this way, but Harden makes crassness as powerful as any maternal instinct.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

But the movie goes absolutely nowhere. It allows us to be a fly on the wall to a whirlwind of gossip, confessions and intimate moments. But when the ending comes, it's an epic letdown. It's just so much Oprah-esque eye candy, without a point of view, or a plot.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Asks questions worth pondering. I only wished the writer-director-editor answered more of them.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Admittedly, mediocre Sayles is still watchable, but, relative to expectations, Casa de los Babys is a disappointment of significant proportions.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Unlike most Sayles movies, the filmmaker no sooner introduces his memorable characters and deeply resonant themes than his From Here to Maternity melodrama abruptly ends.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

Hobbled by weak argumentation, a character who winds up a complete muddle, and Sayles’s inclination to romanticize Latin American revolutionary types, Casa is as mixed an effort as the filmmaker has essayed in some time. [October 2003, p. 18]

Time Richard Schickel

This wisp of a movie turns out to be more thoughtfully affecting than many a more high-flying film.

Village Voice David Ng

The screenplay's clutchy banter (interspersed with arias of teary confession) feels distinctly Oprah, but Sayles extracts unexpected life from his wooden setups.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

There is often not enough space for all these personalities to truly play out. They tend to become types rather than people, representatives of classes and points of view more than individual human beings.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

It's a bit more than the film can handle without leaving loose ends dangling, and though it's never preachy, Sayles' political message-sending sometimes comes across too clearly for its own good. He makes valid points, though, particularly when he lets his storytelling do the work for him.

Dallas Observer Gregory Weinkauf

Sayles is rarely a bore, but occasionally he frustrates more than he delights, enlightens or challenges. Such is the case with Casa de los Babys.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

Though ultimately something less than the sum of its parts, the film's performances are reason enough to see it.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

As usual, Sayles's dialogue scenes are as shapely as blown glass, but none of the characters' predicaments has been adequately explored, much less resolved, when the final freeze-frame arrives.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

What Sayles gives us is a jumble of ideas and stunning performances that never coalesce into a satisfying movie.

Portland Oregonian Kim Morgan

Written and edited by Sayles, "Casa" is certainly the artist's baby, but he crams too much into a relatively brief running time. Worse, though it should be longer, we're not especially unhappy that it isn't, for being around these women gets tedious.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

A creeping equanimity is taking over the work of John Sayles, a quality that in personal terms might be wise and coolheaded but in terms of drama is absolute death.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The film feels more like a thesis than vivid drama.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

It's too big an ensemble to provide enough back story for each player. But Sayles doesn't give his characters easily digestible labels, like "kook" or "pathetic loser."

New York Post Lou Lumenick

A typically well-acted, if ultimately minor, effort by John Sayles, the socially conscious indie icon who's unafraid to take on unfashionable subjects.

LA Weekly Chuck Wilson

The women are terrific -- they know a thing or two about modulating pathos -- and watching them is a pleasure, even if the lines they're speaking sound like those of a world-worried, first-time playwright.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

The cast…is first-rate, but each is given a single note to play.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Casa feels like a miss. The digging into each of these women's lives stays shallow and seldom uncovers anything unexpected.

Variety David Rooney

An entirely schematic treatise on maternity and conflicting cultures. A subject perhaps far more suited to documentary treatment, this numbingly earnest effort will be a laborious delivery for IFC.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

For all his patient, accumulative storytelling, Sayles yields little that doesn't feel trite or overly schematic.