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Mother's Wish

Name: Mother's Wish
Director: Joonas Berghäll
Released: 2015
Duration: 85 min

Representation Score

9.3/10

Excellent

2015

Director

Joonas Berghäll

Runtime

85 minutes

Average Rating

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New Showbiz Analysis

Mother's Wish is a humanistic documentary that succeeds by dismantling idealized versions of motherhood. It replaces sanitized domesticity with a raw look at resilience across diverse global landscapes. By centering women navigating systemic hardships, the film provides a necessary counter-narrative to Western-centric storytelling. The film's greatest strength lies in its multi-layered reach. It moves beyond simple portraiture to explore how socioeconomic and geographic factors shape the maternal experience. This approach creates a nuanced study of human determination. However, the film's scope is strictly defined by biological and social motherhood. This focus limits the exploration of LGBTQ+ identities and specific disability-centric narratives, leaving those areas relatively unaddressed.

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Category Breakdown

Does Mother's Wish have LGBTQ+ representation?

Fair

The film focuses on biological and social maternal bonds across various geographies. It does not include explicit depictions of LGBTQ+ identities or non-assuming gender matches what was assigned at birth gender narratives.

How does Mother's Wish portray gender?

Good

The narrative centers on women's roles and the complexities of motherhood. By featuring women in roles ranging from astronauts to strippers, it disrupts traditional domestic stereotypes.

How racially and ethnically diverse is Mother's Wish?

Excellent

The documentary showcases a broad range of stories from South Africa, Nepal, Mexico, and Russia. This global perspective avoids a Western-centric gaze by centering women of color.

How does Mother's Wish represent religion and culture?

Excellent

The film explores socioeconomic instability and struggle. It critiques systemic failures by framing the protagonists' lives through their fight against precarious circumstances.

Does Mother's Wish include disability representation?

Fair

While specific physical disabilities are not detailed, the film touches on reproductive health and the trauma of miscarriage. It engages with the vulnerabilities of the human condition.

Present on Screen

Exceptional global perspective through stories from South Africa, Nepal, Mexico, and Russia.
Disrupts gender stereotypes by portraying women in high-stakes, non-traditional roles.
Avoids Western-centric storytelling by centering diverse, non-Anglo-Saxon lived experiences.

Limited or Absent

Lacks explicit representation of LGBTQ+ identities or non-assuming gender matches what was assigned at birth gender narratives.
Provides limited evidence of specific physical or neurodivergent disability-centric ability to act.

Official Synopsis

An astronaut sends her young son a video message from outer space. In Mexico, a stripper dances night after night to keep a roof over her child’s head. In Canada, a woman becomes a mother for the first time after enduring seven miscarriages. Finnish filmmaker Joonas Berghäll has travelled to South African settlements, Nepalese terraced fields and Russia’s metropolis Moscow to investigate an unshakable and almost magical connection: the bond between mother and child. MOTHER‘S WISH portrays 10 women from the most varied of cultural and social backgrounds who all tell of the beauty and difficulty of being a mother. These are not only stories of love and pride – but also of disappointed hopes and the most precarious of life circumstances. Above all else, however, the protagonists tell of their determination – regardless of their current living conditions – to fight for a better future.

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