The Surrogate (2020)
Without any preachiness or melodrama, writer-director Jeremy Hersh’s first feature asks tough questions about prenatal testing, eugenics, reproductive rights, parenting, special-needs children and abortion.
This lucid ethical drama is propelled by a performance of stunning psychological insight and raw feeling from Jasmine Batchelor as a single woman who has volunteered to be surrogate and egg donor for her gay best friend (Chris Perfetti) and his husband (Sullivan Jones).
The film becomes more affecting by depicting the character’s fluctuating decision-making, a result of several complicating factors.
There are no movie-of-the-week histrionics, and no moralizing, just perceptively absorbing adult drama.
The film is finely attuned to the shifting emotional moods and feelings of female protagonist facing difficult problems for which there are no right or wrong solutions, or easy ones.