Written for the Association for Pre and
Perinatal Psychology and Health Newsletter.

Spanning three generations of middle-class American women, the movie,
"If These Walls Could Talk"
brings viewers into hauntingly intimate contact with the kaleidescope of issues, perspectives and emotions involved in unwanted preganancies. Demi Moore, Sissy Spacek and Cher each lead three separate superb casts in bringing to light the complex considerations and seemingly impossible choices that simply must be made in the face of vastly varying and deeply human circumstances, each intensified by the deceptively subtle societal pressures of the day.
The first scenario, set in 1952, profiles a young married woman caught between the effects of war-torn grief and the influence of alcohol, leading to a landslide of tragic circumstances.
The second scenario, set in 1974, profiles a woman in her 40's with a well established family of four children and a policeman husband. She is in her first year as a university student stretching to re-discover herself and her life beyond motherhood. Launching her career life is the headstart for getting her children college. A new baby will radically change the course of all their lives.
The third scenario, set in 1996, brings the more contemporary attitudes and approaches to Right-to-Life front and center. A young college student is carrying the child of her married professor/lover. When he spurns her, she is thrust into a double-bind between her freshly tainted idealistic views on abortion, and prospect of motherhood, for which she has no lasting means of support.
All the while, the denominator brilliantly demonstrating their common ground of humanity is. . . the house
that beholds them all.