[I'M GLAD MY MOTHER IS ALIVE screens Saturday November 26th at 7:15 pm and Sunday November 27th at 8:20 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
Review by Pamela Zoslov
Nancy Verrier's book The Primal Wound: Understanding the Adopted Child caused a considerable stir when it was published in 1993. Verrier's thesis challenged the idea that loving and caring adoptive parents can overcome the trauma experienced by a child who is separated from his birth mother and surrendered for adoption. According to Verrier, “the resultant experience of abandonment and loss is indelibly imprinted upon the unconscious minds of these children, causing that which I call the primal wound.”
Verrier's Freudian-derived thesis is vividly illustrated in I'M GLAD MY MOTHER IS ALIVE (Je suis heureaux que ma mère soit vivante), a 2009 film written and directed by Claude Miller, a veteran French director, and his cameraman son, Nathan. Based on a true story, the film tells the story of Thomas Jouvet, a teenager who rebels against his well-meaning adoptive parents (Yves Verhoeven and Christine Citti) and searches for his birth mother.
