Filmmaker Judith Helfand says the camera helped her connect with her mother to keep them talking, especially in the 1990s when this film opens as the camera captures the duo driving to the seashore. The film moves back and forth in time to capture Helfand’s mother (and occasionally her father) in various stages of her life, including when her health started declining due to metastatic colon cancer and lying on her deathbed.
Stuff in the title first points to all the furniture, clothing, knick-knacks, kitchenware, etc. in Judith’s mother’s apartment that Judith and her two brothers dealt with following their mother’s passing. Stuff also relates to all the contents in Judith’s cramped upper West Side Manhattan apartment that are piled up in rooms, including 63 boxes of her mother's stuff that Judith can’t seem to part with. Neatniks will be appalled at seeing the untidy rooms with barely any free spots.
Seven months after her mother’s death, 50-year-old Judith is elated to learn her adoption dreams have come true and a newborn is waiting for her in the hospital. The next day she picks up her tiny daughter who she names Theodora (nickname Theo). The room set aside for the baby is stuffed to the gills and Judith’s friends pitch in to help, even arranging for a 24-hour baby nurse to ease the single mother into her new role.
When it becomes too difficult to carry Theo up brownstone steps, Judith knows she is out of shape and so she opts for gastric sleeve surgery that requires consultations with doctors followed by a 6-month weight loss and diet program. The surgery is successful and now Judith keeps up with active Theo who we watch aging from newborn and toddler to an independent grade-schooler who has an “ever-expanding collection of toys” (more stuff!).
The highly personal film touches upon such topics as grief, motherhood, Jewish traditions, family relationships, healthy lifestyle, and letting go. An optional purchase, especially for collections housing Helfand’s previous films, including A Healthy Baby Girl, in which she documents her cervical cancer at a young age that led to her infertility.