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If These Walls Could Talk Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 14 Reviews)
Am I supposed to feel sorry for these women?
Okay, putting aside my pro-life persuasions, this flick is anything but thought-provoking. Maybe in 1960s it would've been "controversial" and "groundbreaking", but in 1990s... Whom are you kidding? It's next to impossible to shock or outrage people these days. There is nothing unique about the three situations presented in the movie. Three middle-class broads get knocked up because of their irresponsibility. I have a hard time feeling compassion for stupid and careless people. As usual, those traits go along with weakness and cowardice. If Cher wanted to the viewers to feel sorry for the characters, she should've made them more... victimized? I can understand and pity to a certain degree a junkie or a prostitute, a woman whose situation is desperate in the first place. But when three middle-class broads find themselves "inconvenienced" by their unplanned pregnancies, I can't find any compassion in my heart.
A decidely rhetorical HBO movie, but unlikely to persuade anyone
"If These Walls Could Talk" is one of the most didactic films you are likely to see, but given that there is no issue in contemporary America that is more polarizing than that of abortion it could well be that it is one of the least persuasive films you will see as well. Those who are pro-choice will see it as compelling, while those who are pro-life will see it as offensive, and those who have not made up their minds are too young to watch anything that originally aired on HBO. That is especially true of this film, which has a pair of scenes that will upset you regardless of gender or ideology.
The conceit of "If These Walls Could Talk" is that three women, living in three different times in the past half-century but in the same house, find themselves pregnant. Each faces a different situation, both personally and in terms of the legal and social climate regarding abortion. In 1952, Claire Donnelly (Demi Moore) is a young nurse whose husband had been killed in Korea. She has a moment of weakness and when she discovers she is pregnant she desperately tries to find someone who can perform an illegal abortion. In 1974, Barbara Barrows (Sissy Spacek) is a mother of four older children who has started work on a college degree when she finds herself pregnant. This baby means no early retirement for her husband and that their oldest daughter can forget about going to the college of her choice, so Barbara considers a legal abortion. In 1996, Christine Cullen (Anne Heche) learns she is pregnant by her married college professor. Christine is considering an abortion and discovers the local clinic is besieged by anti-abortion protesters, with volunteers escorting women inside past the gauntlet.
What I find interesting about "If These Walls Could Talk" is the way that the writers have dressed up their rhetoric. The death of each person in this movie, whether they are born or unborn, is tragic because death is inherently tragic, and there is certainly an extent to which you can read things both ways in this 1996 movie. After all, the death of a woman because of a "back alley" abortion can be seen as an argument for making abortion legal so that it does not happen, but it also serves as evidence for the idea that women should not have abortions in the first place.
Yet in the total context of the movie the preferred reading for such a things seems clear. Within that context the decision not to have an abortion is not just a pro-life decision, but a pro-choice one as well (to wit, she chooses life). Plus, we see a world where the people who carry guns and placards are fanatics in the crazy sense of the word instead of the deeply devote meaning. There are two sides to the issue, and in each vignette those two sides are represented, and the common denominator is that the side that is most judgmental is the side that loses in each instance. It is just that from a political perspective, one side of the dispute is inherently more judgmental than the other.
ok acting, ok script, very thought provoking
Lets start with the acting first. By no means would any cast member be concidered for a best actor award for this movie. YOu have 3 really good actors giving the viewing audience an ok job at acting. The script was ok to say the best. At no point was their a plot twist or anything like that. The best part of this movie tho is the subject that it takes on. It gives the viewing audience 3 different times when 3 different ladies had to have an abortion in 3 differ time periods. The most confusing part of this movie is the question of. Why is Cher on the cover? Her role in this movie is not of one of the ladies that gets an abortion. I would comment more on that topic, however, I do not want to ruin the movie for someone who has not scene it.
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