Pieces of a Woman: A Heartbreaking Portrayal of Grief

My eyes are squeezed shut. I can hear the panting and crying of the woman giving birth. There are words of encouragement scattered amongst a repetition of the words “push harder” that are always followed by a long hoarse groan. I vow to myself silently that I am never going to have a child or even have sex because childbirth sounds inhumane.

All of a sudden, there is a crash, and a shrill scream pierces the air. A strong cry punctuates the silence that follows, and there is a collective gasp around the room. I open my eyes to find my friend has fainted and fallen from her chair and the woman on the television screen has given birth to a baby girl.

I was 11 years old when I studied the process of human reproduction. In some of the classes, me and my friends were in a constant fit of giggles, especially when learning about the male anatomy, and in others stunned into silence, our minds unable to reconcile the stories we had been told and actual biological fact.

When watching the childbirth scenes in Pieces of a Woman, I was transfixed by the events unfolding before my eyes, which weren’t shut but wide open. My mind drifted back to my first and only experience with childbirth described above, and I am still astonished by Vanessa’s phenomenal acting. The scenes are very realistic from the belching and nausea when the contractions start to the straining tendons on Martha’s neck whilst she is giving birth to her daughter.

Pieces of a Woman is a movie about a couple trying to come to terms with the loss of their child and the toll that it has on their relationship as their grief drives them apart. The primary focus throughout the film is Martha Weiss played by Vanessa Kirby and the secondary focus is Sean Carson, her partner, played by Shia LaBeouf.

Kornel Mundruczo, the director, and Kata Weber, the writer of the movie are a couple and the movie was inspired by the loss of their child. Kornel said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter:

“What is also very encouraging and beautiful is that there is an aspect of art that you cannot talk about in real life but you can talk about in art, as a therapy. We didn’t really talk about that issue at home. It was kind of quiet. It was like, as we say in Hungary, under the table. No one was really facing it.”

After watching the movie I decided to do some research as my knowledge and experience are limited as personally, I am fortunate to not have experienced the loss of a loved one.

Miscarriage is when a baby (or fetus or embryo) dies in the uterus during pregnancy. In the UK, that definition applies to pregnancies up to 23 weeks and 6 days, and any loss of 24 weeks is called a stillbirth. If the baby is born alive, even before 24 weeks, and lives even for a matter of minutes, that is considered a live birth and a neonatal death.

According to the NHS website, in the UK 1 in 8 pregnancies will end in a miscarriage, and in 1 in every 200 births, a child is stillborn. The loss of a child during pregnancy should not be a taboo subject, and there should be no stigma associated with it.

Chrissy Teigen discussed her miscarriage on social media by posting photographs on Instagram and writing an article on Medium describing the loss of her baby boy, Jack, and the grief she and her family have experienced. Many people, myself included, praised and respected her decision but there were some people who criticised her for example Carol McGiffin said on an episode of Loose Women shown on the 1st October 2020:

“I have to say that I did feel a little bit uncomfortable looking at them because I felt like I was intruding in a way. I know that she’s put them up there and I know that she’s had a lot of followers and fans who care deeply for what’s going on with her whole pregnancy up until yesterday but I just felt like this was not something I should be witnessing.”

I think it is important that in a society where perfection is the standard that individuals are measured by and an unproblematic and idyllic life is the ultimate goal we should recognise that it takes tremendous strength and courage to be able to share tragic experiences and vulnerabilities. The people that choose to share their stories on issues and illnesses that are not widely discussed should be applauded rather than condemned and criticised.

The textbook definition of grief is the response to the loss of a bond or attachment to someone or something, it is not restricted to death or only being an emotional response.

I read about the Kübler-Ross model that has five stages that can be broadly applied to any life-altering events such as coping with an illness, death or divorce. However, in this article, I will be focusing on the Colin Murray Parkes and John Bowlby model which defines grief as having four stages or phases:

1. Shock and numbness
2. Yearning and searching
3. Disorganisation and despair
4. Reorganisation and recovery

There are many memorable scenes within the movie and some can be identified as being one of the stages described in the above model. An example would be when Sean and Martha attend an appointment to discuss the findings of the criminal autopsy and Sean is angry with the doctor when he is unable to provide a scientific reason, explanation, or even a theory for the loss of their child whilst Martha is silent throughout the scene.

Yearning and searching is a stage where the grieving individual tries to search for meaning in the loss. This is depicted in the movie as Martha decides to donate the body of her daughter for medical research and in another scene, she begins to notice the young children that are seated around her on the bus when traveling home. One of the emotions commonly experienced during this stage is preoccupation, this is implied as Martha researches sprouting and obsessively attempts to get the apple seeds to germinate when she isn’t successful in her initial attempts.

Disorganisation and despair occur when the individual begins to accept their loss. An example is when Sean sees Martha remove the ultrasound pictures from the wall. He is forced to acknowledge the truth and in the following scene, we see him crying and screaming near the river.

Reorganisation and recovery is the final stage in the model and it is when the individual has come to accept their loss or has tried to do so as much as they possibly can. This is seen in the movie when Martha breaks down and begins to cry, something that is never seen by the viewer up until that point, after seeing the developed pictures that Sean took of her and their daughter. In the last few minutes of the movie, Martha scatters her daughter's ashes into the river and in the following scene, there is a young girl walking through grass and climbing an apple tree.

There are subtle messages woven into the thread of the movie like physical changes in the body don’t stop immediately after the birth of a child as whilst in a department store Martha lactates resulting in a wet patch on the front of her jumper and when returning home she applies a pack of frozen vegetables to her breasts to soothe the soreness.

There is symbolism as well like Sean worked on a construction site that is building a bridge in Boston and the progress that has been made is shown as a preface to scenes where time has elapsed. For me, this has a figurative meaning as Martha has a strained relationship with her own mother, Elizabeth. They argue and are in conflict with each other throughout the movie but in the final few minutes, the viewer sees Martha holding Elizabeth’s hand. Other examples are Martha watching a child make handprints on the condensation in the window and the painting of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge that collapsed in 1940 due to elementary forced mechanical resonance foreshadowing the demise of the relationship between Martha and Sean.

I have wondered if the colour of the clothing worn by Martha is supposed to be symbolic and provide an insight into the emotional state of her mind as she doesn’t express her grief verbally and Sean says to her repeatedly throughout the movie “a penny for your thoughts”. Some examples are in the scene right after the loss of her child she is seen walking to work wearing a red coat. This colour is associated with danger and anger and at the appointment with the doctor, she is wearing a purple jumper, a colour associated with mourning and sorrow.

Kata said in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter:

"I wanted to talk about how these families deal with traumas, and how they give from one generation to another a certain pattern of how to deal with tragedies. For me, it was really important, because I think it can be a burden on someone, a disaster if you cannot find your own personal way to grieve. I also wanted to talk about my experience with a dead child and how this creates huge isolation. People tend to ask you to move on, but the person who has this kind of isolation and longing for the lost one, moving on is the last thing she would ever want."

Pieces of a Woman achieves Kata's objective as it provides a detailed and realistic insight into a traumatic experience. Unlike many movies, it doesn’t gloss over the grief that is experienced, the conflict that is faced by individuals internally when trying to come to terms with the loss, and the effect that this has on relationships.

Originally published on Medium