[In the following review, Sealy praises the ensemble cast of Casa de los Babys, but notes that the film has “too little momentum to sustain viewer interest.”]

John Sayles' movies invariably have a strong emotional center—one that binds his characters to one another and, if all goes well, puts a lock on audience empathy. Think Sunshine State or Lone Star, which, in our view, rate as Sayles' best.

Casa de Los Babys does not go well. The emotional center here has to do with motherhood, specifically the need some women have to become mothers, no matter the cost. Six such women—Americans of varying ages, backgrounds and maternal motivations—are each seeking to adopt a child from an orphanage in an unnamed South American country, where they are required to take up residence (in a rather seedy hotel) until their applications are processed and a suitable child is found.

Nan (Marcia Gay Harden) is loud and abrasive and, at first, unsympathetic. Leslie (Lili Taylor) is flip and funny; Eileen (Susan Lynch) has an aching need to be maternal; Skipper (Daryl Hannah) seems aloof and self-possessed, yet has suffered more heart-break than the others; Gayle (Mary Steenburgen) is secretly addicted to alcohol; Leslie (Lili Taylor) is the most direct and all-knowing, and Jennifer (Maggie Gyllenhaal), the youngest and most naïve of the lot, is also the most sympathetic.

The top-notch all-female ensemble cast in Casa de los Babys is rounded out by the Mexican actress Vanessa Martinez as Asuncion, a worker in the orphanage, and the Broadway star Rita Moreno as Senora Munoz, owner of the hotel where the would-be mothers are billeted.

The interaction among all these distinctly different women does provide some truly memorable sequences. One example is the scene in which a cool Skipper gives the innocent Jennifer a relaxing massage while slowly revealing the terrible traumas she has suffered in her quest for motherhood. And then there's the moment when Eileen spills out her worst fears in an emotional monologue directed to the hotel's Spanish-speaking maid, who doesn't understand a word she's saying but somehow empathizes with the foreign woman's obvious pain.

Casa de los Babys has too few compelling moments, however, and too little momentum to sustain viewer interest. It's a noble effort, but this time around the emotional center does not hold.