Another wonderful documentary by Maite Alberdi, this time focusing on the true story of Eleonor Alejandra Marin Mendoza, a Mexican woman who desperately wants to be a mother, but sadly suffers miscarriages that lead her to the rash decision to fake a pregnancy. Alejandra not only wants a child, but also feels intense pressure to become a mother from her husband and family. She's also pressured by the common cultural belief that you are not really a wife, and a failure as a woman, if you are not a mother. As the months progress, you see Alejandra lie and manipulate others to maintain the lie that she will soon to be a mother. During the subsequent month's of Alejandra's fake pregnancy, you watch Alejandra trap herself over and over with her lies. Maite Alberdi tells this story as an exercise in compassion, because as much as you know that Alejandra is behaving badly and hurting others, you also understand that she is not mentally healthy, and that her miscarriages and the pressure she feels from everyone have distorted her sense of right and wrong. The first hour is a fictional recreation of Alejandra's life. The actress who plays Alejandra, Ana Celeste, is a revelation. She is able to make Alejandra's irrational decisions and dishonesty seem rational and even justified, while also showing how out of touch with reality Alejandra was during her fake pregnancy. Armando Espitia, as Alejandro's husband Arturo, does a great job of depicting him as a husband completely clueless to how his behavior might be negatively affecting his wife, while also believing himself to be a caring husband. The second hour is spent with the real Alejandra and her husband speaking about her life and what resulted from her fake pregnancy. Watching the first hour is sort of like watching a train wreck in slow motion. The second hour is the disaster that follows. As the lies start to be dissected one by one, and you meet the other people involved, you see how Alejandra is not the reliable narrator of her own story. You are smacked in the face with the reality that not only did Alejandra hurt herself and those who love her, but that she victimized another mother and family. She lied to the director and in turn, the audience. What I find remarkable is that as serious and as wrong as Alejandra's behavior was, as much as you understand that she is culpable of a crime, you never lose sense of Alejandra's humanity and why she found herself making all the wrong choices.Some people might dislike this documentary because it asks you to practice radical compassion for someone that many feel doesn't deserve it. I only remind potential viewers that learning about the reasons for someone's actions is not to excuse them away. This documentary does ask what we can do to support women in Alejandra's situation so that they don't make the same mistakes, and how we as a society can stop pressuring women to feel like failures because they cannot meet social expectations. A lot of people failed Alejandra before she failed herself and hurt others. The film is also a Netflix documentary, and if you don't like the style and look of their documentaries, you might dislike this. For myself, the story was too compelling and interesting to care about what it looked like or how it was presented.
