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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.
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.
The movie, directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal and written by Naomi Foner, deals with all of those issues, but in a finally unsatisfactory way.
Losing Isaiah raises hopes for itself by dealing with a social issue as a disturbing dilemma rather than, in typical Hollywood style, as a heroic cause. But it's unwilling to follow through.
Although Halle Berry makes a creditable effort to play against her glamorous image, she's no match for Lange.
The material is emotionally wrenching, but the actors play sociopolitical totems more than flesh-and-blood characters.
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.
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