Adoption on the Big Screen: A Birth Mother's Perspective

My husband and I were looking for a movie to watch Saturday night, and our search took us to Amazon Prime. While scrolling through, a movie caught my eye that seemed to have several of our favorite characters - Ted Mullens, CJ Kregg, Queen Anna, and Benji (also known as Dustin Milligen, Allison Janney, Kristen Bell and Ben Platt). "The People We Hate at the Wedding" is the 2022 movie adaptation of Grant Ginder’s novel of the same name. It was cute enough - full of family drama, sibling rivalry, awkward sexual encounters, personal realizations and finished with a happy ending.

To get where I’m going, I have to spoil the ending…within the last 10 minutes of the movie, Eloise reveals to her sister and soon to be husband (on their wedding day) that she was diagnosed with infertility and she wouldn’t be able to have children of her own. After a loving embrace, they make it down the aisle and one year later the whole family is reunited for family photos where Eloise and her new husband have a baby. Alice (Kristen Bell) reaches for her new niece and says “Wow, I can’t believe the adoption happened that fast!” My head whipped up to the TV at that point, expecting more of a story line regarding adoption, but no…they snapped a family photo and the credits rolled. In 10 minutes, this movie introduced and wrapped up infertility (that Eloise hadn’t told her partner about until the day of their wedding, but that’s a conversation for another day) and the adoption of an infant.

When did adoption become a desensitized, common place, add-on in a movie? Clearly the writer doesn’t have a connection to adoption.

We do such a disservice to adoption when we allow Hollywood to gloss it over with a five minute story line that doesn’t actually dive into the complexities involved.

Hallmark movies have become notorious for this within the last couple of years. On more than one occasion, Hallmark has introduced adoption as a storyline in the beginning of the movie ("The Christmas House"), ignored it for the majority of the movie, and then brought it back as a happy ending. In "Christmas by Starlight", we’re introduced to Annie, a family law attorney specializing in adoption. The beginning of the movie is about her work, and helping families throughout their adoption journey….and that’s it. The plot then shifts to saving her family's beloved cafe from the evil big city developer tasked with buying and demolishing the cafe. In "The Holiday Sitter", Sam (Jonathan Bennett) is called to his sister and brother in law’s house to watch his niece and nephew while their parents travel to be at the birth of the baby they are adopting. The plot of the movie revolves around Sam, a confirmed bachelor, falling in love with the handsome neighbor he recruited to help him and reevaluating his life and what he wants (spoiler alert - it’s a husband and a family of his own). The movie ends with both couples adopting children.

It is huge, life altering, traumatic, complicated, exhausting and difficult. It is the hardest decision a birth mother will make, and probably the most difficult journey an adopting family will travel.

I know a lot of people in the adoption community hate any movie or show that has an adoption story line…and I get it. It can be triggering. It can bring up tons of trauma and bad memories. It doesn’t bother me personally, but as an adoption professional and birth mom, I live in this every day. And I will usually seek out movies and shows that center around adoption, so I know what’s out there and if there is something really good, I can recommend it to families I work with.

The Good and The Bad

That said, there are some shining examples of how Hollywood gets it right. I’m looking at you “This Is Us” writers. I could write an entire series on This Is Us, Randall’s storyline and then go into Kate & Toby. And maybe I will, but so many others already have. Here is one of my favorite blog posts from another adoption professional, and adoptee, about "This Is Us".

Sharing in popularity, “Little Fires Everywhere” and “Sex and the City” both put an emphasis on infertility and adoption in their plots. Charlotte’s infertility was a huge theme of the original series, culminating in finding out they would be welcoming Lily into their family via adoption. HBO made some missteps in this storyline, especially when Charlotte and Anthony are shopping for her meeting with potential birth parents and Anthony says “Don’t worry, if this doesn’t work out I know some gays who adopted a Guatamalan baby for like $100”...completely inappropriate and tone deaf. Lily’s adoption is not hidden through the subsequent movies and new series, and I am so grateful that SATC made Rose the “difficult” child from her excessive tantrums crying in SATC2 to her defiance in “And Just Like That”. Traditionally, the media portrays adoptees as “difficult” while the biological children are “perfect.”

There is so much to unpack in “Little Fires Everywhere”…so much. To be honest, I hated it. I wanted to love it because of the cast, but so much of that series, and those storylines were awful and did a complete disservice to surrogates, birth parents, and adoption. From Mia’s surrogacy journey gone awry, running away and changing her name, to Pearl’s quest to know her father, “Little Fires Everywhere” was a dumpster fire. And then we introduce Bebe and The McCullough’s. While the storyline of the custody battle was, sadly, an accurate depiction of how the situation would probably pan out in the real world, it was still poorly done. Even after all of that, I could have tolerated it… if it wasn’t for the ending. Oh, that ending [SPOILER ALERT]. To have Bebe BREAK INTO the McCullough’s house and KIDNAP May Ling (Mirabell) was too far. Those five minutes set society’s perception of birth parent’s back at least twenty years, throwing away all of the work we have done to change the narrative of open adoption and birth parent relationships.

Respectful and Honest

“A Christmas Love Story” stars Kristin Chenoweth as a single choir director getting her youth choir ready for their annual Christmas concert. Danny is an incredibly talented young musician who joins the choir to hopefully meet his birth mother…played by Kristin Chenoweth. The movie centers around their relationship, getting to know one another, and ends with them singing together on stage at the Christmas concert - with Danny’s supportive Dad in the audience. Is it cheesy? Yes, 100%. But it acknowledges the heartbreaking decision that was made, the loss involved, and the desire to build a relationship.

“The Noel Diary” was released on Netflix this past November, and I turned it on one day because it looked like a good holiday rom-com, and it starred Justin Hartley. I truly didn’t read the description of the movie, and I’m glad I didn’t because I was intrigued when the plot introduced adoption and Rachel’s search for her birth mother. Jake Turner (Justin Hartley) is a wildly famous author who comes home at Christmas to settle his mother’s estate. Amongst her things, he discovers a diary that seems to be personal, but he doesn’t understand what it truly means yet. Rachel shows up on the doorstep hoping to find information about her birth mother, Noel, who was Jake’s nanny as a child. We then join them on their journey through the diary, unlocking Rachel’s past and searching for her birth mother. I won’t spoil this one, because I encourage you to watch it. The ending isn’t perfect - it leaves me wanting more, but overall, this movie does a really great job exploring the complexities of adoption, and a birth mother’s desire to have a relationship with her child.

What Needs to Change?

Adoption in movies and on television can be done well. But to do so, we have to recognize the heaviness of adoption. Include the complexities, the difficult relationships, and the long journey. Part of the issue with public perception of adoption is due to the media’s portrayal of it as a simple, joyful-ending. It creates false expectations about the process involved and lifelong support that is needed. We need to stop adding adoption as a happy, one-sided storyline simply because it's an easy way to wrap up a plotline. If adoption isn’t going to get more than a five-minute storyline, it doesn’t belong in a movie.