Goodbye Baby

Patricia Goudvis' documentary about foreign adoption of Guatemalan children—particularly by couples from the United States—is a technically unsophisticated but sober and informative treatment of a volatile subject. The director, who has made several other films about political life in the Central American country, is herself the adoptive mother of two Guatemalan children, and was drawn to the subject because it has become so controversial, marked by accusations in Guatemala that infants are in effect being purchased for use as donors in the international black market in human organs. Goodbye Baby covers a variety of important issues: the treatment of poor Guatemalan women, who are often compelled to bear many children as proof of their husbands' virility (and then left alone to care for them); the social taboo against local adoption, which leads to suspicion and outright hostility against establishments founded to care for needy youngsters; and an adoption business in which lawyers and shady facilitators are suspected of reaping obscene profits. What sets this hot-button-issue film apart from similar fare is Goudvis' restraint and open-mindedness; while Goodbye Baby certainly isn't devoid of emotion, the presentation of the various points of view without exaggerated censure or special pleading allows for the raising of pertinent ethical, social, and political issues in a way that invites reasoned debate rather than simplistic answers. Recommended. Aud: C, P. (F. Swietek)