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Losing Isaiah (1995)
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Reviews Counted:27
Fresh:11
Rotten:16
Average Rating:5/10
Runtime: 1 hr 48 mins
Genre: Dramas
Synopsis: Khaila Richards may be a crack addict but she's also the mother of a beautiful baby boy named Isaiah. One night, she finds herself desperate for a hit. So Khaila leaves the wailing infant swaddled... Khaila Richards may be a crack addict but she's also the mother of a beautiful baby boy named Isaiah. One night, she finds herself desperate for a hit. So Khaila leaves the wailing infant swaddled in rags by a garbage dump. She returns the next morning in a panic, only to find that Isaiah's gone. Believing him dead, a devastated Khaila gets herself thrown into rehab where she struggles to change her life. Meanwhile, the previously crack-addicted infant is legally adopted by white social worker Margaret Lewin and her suburban family. Under the Lewins' care, Isaiah grows strong and healthy. But when a drug-free Khaila learns her baby's alive, she'll do everything in her power to get him back. [More]
Starring: Jessica Lange, Halle Berry, Samuel L. Jackson, David Strathairn
Starring: Jessica Lange, Halle Berry, Samuel L. Jackson, David Strathairn, Cuba Gooding
Director: Stephen Gyllenhaal
Director: Stephen Gyllenhaal
Screenwriter: Naomi Foner
Reviews for Losing Isaiah
Despite the fine leads and some well-crafted scenes, Losing Isaiah is apt to make viewers angry and frustrated no matter where they stand on the issues.
The narrative is too fragmented and the film's point of view shifts for stretches that are too lengthy.
Not only does this lowest-common denominator conclusion backfire, it insults anyone who invested their time getting involved in the whole thing.
Losing Isaiah transcends the custody issue and finds drama in the black-white polarities that neither character can escape.
Effectively dramatizes the clash of ideas and ideals in adoption cases.
This drama about interracial adoption is serious and affecting, thanks in large part to the presence of its two magnetic stars.
This is an absorbing and involving picture, but the terms propounded here limit the story, which depends almost entirely on emotions rather than on thought.
While the subject may be controversial enough to merit an Oprah free-for-all, this evenhanded melodrama is neutral to a fault.
It reminds us that life is seldom tidy, work is always left to be done. And the resolve of these good people to do that work swells the heart.
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