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Adoption
Adoption
8.2
/10
2,543 Ratings

ADOPTION

Örökbefogadás

Directed by Márta Mészáros
Hungary, 1975
Drama

Synopsis

Kata, 43, works in a factory. A widow, she’s been having an affair with a married colleague for some time. Kata wants to have a child, but her lover won’t hear of it. Then Kata meets 17-year-old Anna, who lives in a reformatory, and takes the young woman under her wing. The two women form a bond.

Synopsis

Kata, 43, works in a factory. A widow, she’s been having an affair with a married colleague for some time. Kata wants to have a child, but her lover won’t hear of it. Then Kata meets 17-year-old Anna, who lives in a reformatory, and takes the young woman under her wing. The two women form a bond.

Our take

One of Márta Mészáros’s best-known films, this bracingly intimate and still-relevant drama is a moving inquiry into middle-aged loneliness and the conflicted yearning for familial belonging. Emotionally astute yet deftly subtle, Adoption won the first Golden Bear awarded to a woman director.