Earth Mama

In last year's Earth Mama, directed by 2012 Olympian Savanah Leaf in her feature film debut, the main character of Gia deals a lot with exhausted, exhausting, and paternalistic state employees of the California child-welfare system. She is a pregnant woman not making ends meet, and her two young children have been separated from her. She can only see them during supervised visits; her son misses her terribly, while her daughter can sometimes be angry at her and keeps a distance. Gia is a character who faces one economic trouble after another—the balance on her phone is dwindling, her card is declined, and she misses child support payments. She asks her boss for a hundred-dollar advance at one point (it's implied that it is denied), and she steals diapers in another scene in broad daylight. There's no relief in sight for her. 

Her story is reminiscent of Malcolm X's memoir in which he painfully detailed his memories of the state separating him and his siblings from their mother. These stories are not uncommon; one in ten Black child is separated from their parents by the child-welfare system, according to a recent book by Dorthy Roberts, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, called Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families. According to Roberts, there are major cities in the U.S. in which sixty percent of Black children have had contact with child-welfare officials. (Her 1997 book, Killing the Black Body, detailing the punishment of Black women for being pregnant and using drugs, is also painful relevant to this film.) Why is it like this? Roberts and others argue that the system is designed that way. Earth Mama, a tragic film, is cinematic visualization of these tragic facts.

This is evident from the first moment early on in the film of her and her children, which is heartbreaking. Things understandably grow more hopeless along the way, and her frustration and how she acts upon it causes her to lose allies. Much of the imagery involves scenes (some real and some presumably fantastical or perhaps hallucinatory) of the earth, particularly the sea, trees, forests. Why? Perhaps they are what Gia longs for. At point, she walks naked in a forest in an almost more literal form of forest bathing. Why wouldn't she? The benefits of forest bathing include reduced stress, lower blood pressure, and accelerated recovery from trauma. It's an escape from the noise and chaos of the environment in which authorities are frequently knocking on her door and there are non-stop problems. The natural hues of the earth stand in stark contrast to the artificial dullness of child-welfare offices, hospitals, and her employment (a photography store) that Gia finds herself in for most of the film. 

The role of Gia is played exceptionally by rapper Tia Nomore. It's a very naturalistic performance and a very impressive one for a debut; in every scene she is in, her performance becomes more and more engrossing. Another musician, Doechii, plays Gia's friend, Trina. The name Gia means "God is gracious," but Gia herself is irreligious. Trina, however, is quite pious. At first, one would imagine that most audience members would cheer on Trina's resilience, stamina, and encouragement. "There's a lot of people expecting us to fail," she tells Gia. (It's easy to understand what she is talking about, especially when one is reminded of the stereotype that Black parents don't really love their children.) At every moment, she is motivating Gia to keep going. However, Trina's devoutness starts to wear thin, as she quotes from the Bible so much that it seems to inadvertently push Gia in the opposite direction. This effect is so profound that when another friend of Gia's tries to offer her own sense of encouragement by talking about her spiritual feelings of her late mother's presence, Gia is similarly turned off. 

Earth Mama is not as memorable a film as A Thousand and One (also from 2023) or Miss Juneteenth (from 2020), which are also about Black mothers struggling to raise their children when the cards are stacked against them, and the borderline lethargic pacing of some moments may frustrate some viewers. The writing and directing by Leaf, however, is superb. (The screenplay is based on her previous film, a documentary short called The Heart Still Hums about five new mothers trying to overcome difficult odds, that she made with Taylor Russell.) Other commendable aspects of the film include Jody Lee Lipes' cinematography, with its 16 format and the (as Lipes put it) "almost gritty lighting style" that gives the film a look as if it's about twenty years old, which is fitting because it is set in 2006.

Earth Mama demonstrates a tremendous amount of talent from his cast and crew, especially Leaf, Nomore, and Doechii, all of whom are relatively new to making movies. I sincerely hope they continue to make more.