In this interview provided by IFC Films, Sayles provides an in-depth look at the story behind the film.
Is this a story you've wanted to tell for a long time?
I wrote a TV movie called "A Perfect Match" about a woman who had given up a baby when she was 16 and now she's 32 and develops a medical condition and needs to find her daughter, but the kid hasn't been told she's adopted. So it's something I've actually been interested in for a long time, probably about 15 years.
So what made you do it now?
One of things that got me going was I overheard a conversation where a guy was complaining about how long it was taking to get a baby, and he was a little crass about it. He said, "Well, let's face it, we are buying a kid, you'd think your money would get you faster service." Then he said his wife had been saying in this hotel with other Americans waiting there for the same exact purpose for over a month.
How much are the women based on people you know?
None of it is very specific. I know some people who have adopted kids. I
have a friend who's adopted two little Chinese girls and she's a single mother. But they're not really based on people I know. Most of the characters I write are composites. I don't even have to know them that closely, they can just be based on stories I hear about people.
Nan is the most complicated of the women. What do you
think her future is with her child?
She comes with a lot of baggage, so she's got a big chip on her shoulder.
What you hope is that she's going to get this kid and just melt. One of the
things this kid is getting besides a very complicated mother is a fierce
advocate; you don't want to be a teacher who's messing with this woman's kid. So there's a lot of pros and cons to it.
What kind of feeling do you want the audience to have at the end the film?
Well, I think they should feel like, what happens next? You don't know if
it's going to be great or terrible. You know you don't want these babies
sleeping out on the beach, and having to live off the street, at least they have a fighting chance now.
You sent the actors hand written notes with their character's back-story. Is that something you like to do on all your films.
I've pretty much have done it since I started making movies.
Sometimes they're more factual and sometimes they're more impressionistic. But I think it's something I should do. Actors abhor a vacuum and if you don't provide it they'll make up their own.
Did you write the parts with any of these actresses in mind?
I try not to do that because you never know who's going to be available
and if they'll want to do it, and you don't want to be too disappointed.
Naturally, you go back to the actors you've worked with before that you'd like to work with again. I'd just done "Sunshine State" with Mary Steenburgen so she was definitely on that list.
How much research did you do?
Basically just finding out what the laws were in the various countries. I
read Spanish fine so I got the adoption rules for all the Latin American
countries. Mexico, where we shot the movie, has very few foreign adoptions, it's almost unheard of; other countries have quite a bit, and all have different rules. In Brazil, for instance, each state has different regulations. At the time, Chile had one of the longest
residency requirements, at least two months, so that's the most similar to what we see in the movie.
(Interview provided courtesy of IFC Films)
