Mother and Child 2010

Karen Kerry Washington carries a quiet ache from a decision made when she was fourteen: to give her daughter up for adoption. That choice has haunted her and colors how she forms connections, making intimacy feel fragile and risky.

At work, she meets Paco, a laid-back man whose warmth clashes with her guarded nature. Their initial tension gradually eases as trust grows, and they eventually marry.

Paco persuades Karen to write a letter to her unknown, adult daughter, leaving it at the Catholic adoption agency. The letter is unsigned because Karen never learned the daughter’s name, and the clerk who would file it becomes distracted.

Elizabeth [Naomi Watts] grows up solitary, willful, and hardhearted. She becomes an attorney at a prestigious firm led by Paul. The two have an affair, and although Elizabeth had her tubes tied at seventeen, she becomes pregnant. She quits without telling Paul and moves to a new apartment and a new job.

Paul stops by and offers to end his current relationship to become a proper couple, a gesture Elizabeth declines. Yet he convinces her to leave a letter for her biological mother with the adoption agency.

Lucy [Annette Bening] is a baker who longs to be a mother but cannot have children. She and her husband Joseph contact the same agency and, after a protracted interview, meet a young pregnant woman who agrees to give them her baby.

Shortly before birth, Joseph reveals that he wants his own biological child, and the couple separates, but Lucy plans to go ahead with the adoption alone. The birth mother changes her mind just after the birth, leaving Lucy devastated.

Elizabeth dies during childbirth. With no one stepping forward to claim the baby, the agency offers the infant to Lucy, who adopts her. Lucy’s early days as a mother are intense, and she leans on her own mother for guidance.

One year later, Karen learns of Elizabeth’s death and the misplaced letter that informed her she has a granddaughter named Ella. The agency arranges a meeting, and Karen meets Ella, who lives nearby, along with Lucy in the neighborhood.