Sometimes, a dramatically flawed film still may offer a certain insight into a very real issue. Such is the case with THE 11TH HOUR, newly-released theatrically, whose original title is I AM HERE.
The central character is Maria, played by Kim Basinger: an attractive, upscale forty-something businesswoman who is long-married. For years, she and her husband have been trying unsuccessfully to have a child. At the outset, she has yet one more miscarriage. This time around, she almost dies-- and she is told that childbirth simply is not for her. Maria’s husband reluctantly accepts this diagnosis, but Maria cannot. “There has to be another possibility,” she insists. And when she learns that babies are being born to teenage prostitutes in Czechoslovakia and are being sold, she sets out on a journey to secure one for herself.
Dramatically-speaking, Maria’s plight from this point on is farfetched. This only begins when she picks up a most unusual hitchhiker, which serves as more of a plot device than a logical action on her part. So while THE 11TH HOUR deals with very real emotions, its plot twists are anything but credible.
Yet despite its flaws, THE 11TH HOUR works as a psychological portrait of a woman’s very personal dilemma and her desperation and devastation regarding her maternal instincts. Particularly effective is the “voice” of her unborn child that she keeps hearing, and that guides her throughout the story. Also, the film is a sobering reminder of how individual lives are ever-so different. Some of us enjoy safe, privileged existences. We are like Maria in that we have money, possessions, and comforts. Yet some of us, through no fault of our own, are homeless. Some of us are refugees. Some of us are abused. Some of us are unwanted.
You can compare the plights of two babies. One is born into luxury, and is loved by his or her parents. This child will have all the advantages that caring parents can offer. The other, meanwhile, is born into poverty, and from an early age is surrounded by cruelty and depravity.
Here is one of life’s ironies, one which is explored in THE 11TH HOUR. A child who would be wanted and loved might never exist, because its mother is unable to become pregnant. Meanwhile, other children who are born really are not wanted, and are destined for lives of misery. Given the circumstances of their births, some children thrive. And others barely survive.
Rob Edelman teaches film history at the University at Albany. He has written several books on film and television, and is an associate editor of Leonard Maltin’s Movie and Video Guide.
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