EVERYTHING PUT TOGETHER

US, 2000, 86 minutes, Colour.
Radha Mitchell, Megan Mullally, Catherine Lloyd Burns, Justin Louis, Matt Molloy, Mark Boone Jr, Alan Ruck, Judy Geeson.
Directed by Marc Forster.


Everything Put Together is the first film of director Marc Forster, a Swiss director who moved to Hollywood and made the surprise hit, Monsters' Ball, for which Halle Berry won an Oscar as best actress.

This film is much more limited in scope. It is also dedicated to people who have experienced the anguish of SIDS, Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. This gives the film a highly emotional purpose in its portrait of a family and the grief at the death of a child. However, the film also focuses, even more strongly perhaps, on the reaction of the friends of the husband and wife and their inability to cope with the death. It reflects the common criticism of the United States where death is not able to be mentioned. This time, the young woman whose child dies is ostracised (silently and politely) from her group of close friends who are also pregnant and with whom she has trained for the giving birth. There is also an alienation between the husbands. This comes to a peak when the anguished mother, who has been invited to be godmother to one of the other children, is not informed that the parents have changed their minds. She comes to the church and there is a melodramatic scene.

Australian Radha Mitchell (High Art, Love and Other Catastrophes, Pitch Black) is very persuasive as Angie, the young mother who enjoys her pregnancy and is distraught at the sudden death of her child. Justin Louis portrays her husband. In the aftermath of the death, she is also alienated from him.

The film is done on a very small budget, is modest in its technical credits. However, it is strong and earnest in its performances and in its concern about SIDS and the repercussions on parents as well as the relationship with peers. This is an unusual topic and the film is effective in its way.

1. A challenging and sad story about pregnancy, birth, SIDS?

2. The career of the director, subsequent films, success in a variety of genres, this as a beginning? The cast?

3. The American city setting, homes, group meetings, hospital, church? Musical score?

4. The impact of the film for pregnant women, women who have given birth, women who have suffered in pregnancy or the death of children? A sympathetic response from men? Observers?

5. The title? As applying to the situation? Coping?

6. The portrait of the couple, the marriage, love for each other, the detail of home life? Angie and some edge to her character? Pregnancy, the experience of pregnancy, preparing for the birth?

7. Angie and her friends, the discussions, the support, her being able to rely on them?

8. The birth, joy, the sudden death of the child, within a short space of time? Their devastating effect on Angie? On her husband?

9. Angie and her emotions, trying to deal with the situation, the support of her husband? And yet her tension with him? His trying to cope?

10. Angie’s mother, remote, critical?

11. The reaction of the friends, their blaming Angie, the motivations, the reasons? Ostracism? The silent treatment? Polite yet devastating?

12. The characters of the women, in themselves, their marriages, friendship, superficial, gossip, the failure of friendship?

13. The friend in her pregnancy, for Angie to be godmother, arriving at the church, not having been told that they did not want to? Her upset, the scene?

14. The future for the mother, the father, the marriage? The question whether Angie would return to her friends and their way of life?

15. Scenes of death, the reality of death, its impact, having to cope?