68
Metascore
10 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 75TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghTV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonaghIt's a serious and well-researched consideration of natural childbearing vs. hospital delivery that explores the larger social conditions and assumptions that shape women's choices.
- 75The A.V. ClubNoel MurrayThe A.V. ClubNoel MurrayMore propaganda than cinema, and at an hour and a half, its exhaustiveness diminishes its impact. But Epstein anchors the film nicely with her own pregnancy, which occurs while the documentary is in production and comes to an unexpected conclusion before shooting ends.
- 75New York Daily NewsJack MathewsNew York Daily NewsJack MathewsPassionate, enlightening and unabashedly one-sided, Abby Epstein's documentary is not for everyone. But at the very least, it should be seen by every pregnant woman in America.
- 75San Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco ChronicleA powerful, frightening look at America's delivery room.
- 70Village VoiceVillage VoiceEpstein and Lake have crafted an absorbing, thought-provoking inquiry into what modern birth has become and how to make it better.
- 70The New York TimesStephen HoldenThe New York TimesStephen HoldenA passionate ground-level examination of home childbirth.
- 70SalonAndrew O'HehirSalonAndrew O'HehirLake and Epstein are not in fact trying to stigmatize other women's choices about how and where to give birth. Instead, they're trying to introduce an entire universe of history and information that should inform those choices, and that the medical establishment has virtually erased from American memory.
- This unflinchingly shot picture is not for the squeamish. Epstein and Lake's own commitment to you-are-there realism is remarkable as well, each bringing new meaning to the phrase "naked truth."
- 60VarietyRonnie ScheibVarietyRonnie ScheibDocumentary seems best suited to cable: Lake's informal, Oprah-like concern invites the intimacy of home viewing. But the chick-chat approach in no way undermines the gravity of the problems the docu addresses.
- 50It's full of moving (and surprisingly ungross) filmed deliveries, including those by Epstein and Lake themselves. Unfortunately, the movie is also a propagandistic brief on behalf of the home-birth movement that's so selective in its presentation of information that it makes Michael Moore look like a fat lady in a blindfold holding a pair of scales.