On May 7, Mother and Child, a film about a 50-year-old woman and the 35-year-old woman she gave up for adoption when she was 15, will be opening following a warm reception in the film festival circuit. Starring Annette Bening (as I’m guessing the 50-year-old woman) and Naomi Watts (as I presume the 35-year-old offspring given up for adoption by teen mom Bening), the film is one of a few impending offerings with an obviously predominant female theme. Other than the positive buzz it generated at Sundance, I know very little about this film–other than reading about how Naomi Watts, playing a seductress (because apparently that’s what happens when your teen mom gives you up for adoption), has a full-frontal nude scene–a brazen bid on the part of the producers/film-maker to entice hormonal men to buy tickets to this overt “woman’s movie.” Sigh. I’m not going to discuss one of my long-standing irritants–the acceptable dichotomy of female nudity in films over male nudity–I can go on for hours about that and I will in a future post.

I’m going to recount a real-life story involving Annette Bening, which you might find interesting. (Sorry no salacious details here). Anyway, in the late 1980s, I was enrolled one summer in Circle in the Square’s theater workshop. For eight weeks, I reported to class and took a smorgasbord of classes ranging from speech/diction and scene study to singing. One feature of the program was a weekly Q & A we’d have with a theater professional, a working actor or actress who’d recount his/her experiences in theater before opening the floor to questions from us budding performers. Then appearing in the Circle in the Square production of Tina Howe’s Coastal Disturbances, Annette Bening (this was several years before she hit it big in movies and before Warren Beatty ) was a guest for one of these Q & A’s. What struck me immediately about her was…her refreshing lack of pretentiousness and disarmingly direct, no-bullcrap manner. She was honest, did not evade when asked a difficult or probing question and unlike the other “guests,” was genuinely interested in what we were taking at Circle that summer. “Are you guys taking scene study?” she asked with a concerned expression. We nodded. “Speech?” We nodded again. “Good,” she offered with an air of gravity, exuding the airs of a disciplinarian/teacher and less of a future A-list actress.

I remember she spoke about her then husband (not Warren Beatty), a well-known (in theater circles) stage combat instructor; she mentioned how she had met him while studying acting at San Francisco’s A.C.T. and how important it was for performers to “have a life.” She stressed that repeatedly to us. She also talked about how important it is when working on a love/romantic scene with an actor, to make that actor feel comfortable. Very good, sensible advice.

Not everyone took to her–as a person (she was very straightforward)—or as a performer (I remember one of my teachers told us in class that she felt Bening was too “mannered, too conservatory-like” in Coastal Disturbances–I thought her acting was inventive, fresh and full of smart choices). Yet I always remembered the advice she dished out that summer day inside Circle’s air-conditioned lobby where we all sat, Lotus style, listening to Bening, who was also sitting with us, Lotus style, talk about acting and her career trajectory.

I know she’s more of a critic’s darling and less of a mass favorite (unlike the overrated, horse-like Julia Roberts whose luster finally and thankfully seems to be dimming with the public) but I’ve always liked the taut intelligence she has brought to her roles, along with her almost signature brittleness and slightly bordering on hysteria style.

I can’t believe she didn’t win an Emmy playing Jean Harris in that film on HBO. What a crime! Here’s hoping if she does score an Oscar nomination for this role in Mother and Child or in the upcoming film with Julianne Moore in which both play a lesbian couple, that she doesn’t lose out yet again…to Hillary Swank.

Trailer for Mother and Child

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