Critical Choices

Lucia, pregnant with her first child, prepares herself to be a single mother

Homer is an orphan who was never adopted, becoming the favorite of orphanage director Dr. Larch. Dr. Larch imparts his full medical knowledge on Homer, who becomes a skilled, albeit unlicensed, physician. But Homer yearns for a self-chosen life outside the orphanage. What will Homer learn about life and love in the cider house? What of the destiny that Dr. Larch has planned for him?

A young Catholic priest from Boston confronts bigotry, Nazism, and his own personal conflicts as he rises to the office of cardinal.

Paris, 1933. The daughter of a respectable lower middle class couple, Violette Nozière, leads a disreputable double life. Far from being the innocent 18-year-old her parents mistake her for, she spends her nights with dissolute young men in the less salubrious areas of the city.

Foon escapes an arranged marriage by walking the road of a Ji Sor. After an affair with Shing, she becomes pregnant. An attempted abortion nearly costs Foon her life. Wan, the young owner of a silk factory, rescues her. Wan and Foon share their romances, reflecting the experience of women during the 40's.

Teenage brother and sister Jim and Sonia Peterson navigate tough times in high school when Jim befriends a young man who turns out to be a bad influence.

Holly Hunter plays a lonely, single, poorly educated Texan who finds herself pregnant with no means to support a child. To avoid giving up the child, she seeks an abortion. Denied an abortion in Texas the young woman hires a novice lawyer to plead her case in the US supreme court. Eventually the law is changed, but for the character it takes longer than nine months.

A young woman who became pregnant from an assault faces legal trouble and scandal after having an abortion.

A boy grows up not knowing his real identity. One day a mysterious lady, claiming to be his real mother, divulges the truth about his roots. He is caught between leaving his past and living his new life.

In the sweltering back kitchen of a Times Square restaurant, undocumented cook Pedro is caught between mounting pressures at work and a complicated romance with waitress Julia. When money goes missing, suspicion spreads, igniting tensions that threaten to upend the fragile hopes of the staff.

In a conservative and swampy Brazil, a birthday party is held at a fatherless home. Joana, the birthday girl, wants to get her period soon. Her brother, Dudu, wants his father home. When teenager Verbena arrives unannounced, all the wishes can come true. But not without some pain.