Mother’s Baby
Director: Johanna Moder
Writer: Johanna Moder, Arne Kohlweyer
Cast: Marie Leuenberger, Hans Löw, Claes Bang, Julia Franz Richter, Nina Fog
Seen on: 31.10.2025

Content Note: birth trauma/medical trauma

Plot:
Julia (Marie Leuenberger), a successful conductor, and her husband Georg (Hans Löw) have been trying for a while to get pregnant. Finally they turn to the private clinic of Dr. Vilfort (Claes Bang) who promises success – and has it. Julia is overjoyed but once the birth of the baby starts, things start to go wrong. But nobody but Julia seems to realize that something is off.

Mother’s Baby isn’t quite as good as I hoped it would be, but it has some interesting thoughts and a really strong performance by Marie Leuenberger that center it and do make it worthwhile.

Mother’s Baby takes on an interesting topic, and one that hasn’t gotten a lot of attention in media so far, and that is: struggling, maybe even failing to adapt to motherhood. Julia wanted to have a child, that’s for sure, but once the child is there, everything is different from what she expected. Some things are harder than she thought – like leaving her job behind for a while and maybe having competition in her successor (by the way, I loved that she was a conductor and that pretty much everybody she interacts with at work is also a woman, classical music needs more of that) – and some things seem way too easy, deceptively so.

When she tries to voice those thoughts, nobody really listens. In fact, this starts even before the baby is born or rather during its birth when something is happening and nobody talks to Julia (or Georg, for that matter) about what is going on. It is a scene that is unfortunately not as unrealistic as it should be and is doubly horrifying. I gave birth myself and we had a bit of an emergency, but the one thing that kept me anchored was that people told me what was going on all the time. Julia (pitch-perfectly portrayed by Leuenberger) doesn’t have that, and it was deeply upsetting to me, too, despite having had good nurses and doctors with me (so, fair warning, if something similar happened to you as to Julia, this might be triggering). It is definitely a good representation of the kind of treatment people, especially marginalized ones, still receive from doctors.

The movie plot then turns to a rather standard thriller pattern, and that was probably the film’s weakest choice. If it had played things straight, I think I would have loved it. But the kind of mystery it spins with a SFF spin (not that I usually mind those) did the story and Julia’s struggle a disservice. And it made the film itself a little boring because it was rather clear where things were headed.

That being said, I did like the ending again. I thought it was the film’s most interesting part. Julia finds an answer for herself and that is enough for her. Neither Georg – who was never searching for anything – nor anybody else need to know that answer. Plus, ultimately, Julia turns her back on motherhood. But that doesn’t mean that Georg needs to give up fatherhood. I thought it was an unusual resolution that made up for the more conventional parts of the film.

Summarizing: it doesn’t work all the way through, but it has enough strong moments to make it more than worthwhile.