Mark Reviews Movies: THE SURROGATE

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 11, 2020

Writer/director Jeremy Hersh reveals unexpected layers as his debut feature The Surrogate progresses. The film begins as an uplifting story about the close bond between two friends, only to transform into a deep discussion and sometimes uncomfortable debate about morality.

That shift, the level of detail in the arguments, and the way Hersh's screenplay always remains a character-based drama make this an ambitious and sturdily crafted film. Even beneath all of that, though, the filmmaker is working another angle—one that we can sense throughout but that becomes painfully clear by the end.

Brooklyn residents Jess (Jasmine Batchelor, in a performance as confident and layered as the film itself) and Josh (Chris Perfetti) have been best friends for a while. Jess works a marketing job at non-profit organization, and she's unchallenged enough in her role that her actual work is suffering as she tries to do more. That desire and eagerness to be helpful is part of her personal life, too. Jess has agreed to become an egg donor for Josh and his husband Aaron (Sullivan Jones), and she's also going to carry the pregnancy to term for them. The story opens with the moment of joy when an at-home pregnancy test shows a positive result.

Everything seems to be going according to the plan, but a prenatal test about three months into the pregnancy raises a lot quandaries. The fetus shows signs of Down syndrome. Jess continues as if nothing has changed, but Josh and Aaron clearly have some doubts.

That's the basic setup for the story, and the rest of it unfolds as a complicated examination of how these characters respond to a morally complex question, in which none of the answers is right or wrong. Hersh doesn't take a side, because he's wise enough as a writer and a filmmaker to know that the only correct side in drama is with each and every one of his characters.

Jess dives in to the world of families living with people with Down syndrome. She finds a local community center that has programs for kids with the genetic difference and brings Josh along (Aaron is tellingly absent for this and a noticeable section of the story following the discovery). She plays with one child. She finds the kid's mother Bridget (Brooke Bloom) at the end of the program and immediately has some questions. Jess has many more, too, and keeps at trying to arrange meeting after meeting with Bridget and her family.

Eventually, Jess, Josh, and Aaron have lunch at Bridget's home, where Jess continues the questioning, while Josh and Aaron sit with polite smiles covering up their obvious discomfort. The realities keep arising. Schools are difficult to find. The cost of those schools and other programs are considerable. "Isn't that the case for all parents," Jess asks at one point, and the look on Bridget's always-patient face cracks just a bit at her interrogator's naiveté.

If it hasn't happened yet, it's around this point that our initial understanding of Jess probably will have shifted. She is, by all accounts and all evidence, a thoughtful and considerate woman, but here—in this situation, faced with a hypothetical dilemma for her but a very real one for Bridget and, possibly, her friends—is someone imposing her presence, her questions, and her beliefs on total strangers and two friends weighing the options of a seemingly impossible decision.

That decision is presented with care, compassion, and intelligence by Hersh's screenplay. There is no easy or universal answer to this choice. As a kid, Josh had a friend who had a sibling with Down syndrome, and much of his opinion has been defined by the sheltered and short life that child lived. Josh and Aaron want a child, but they also point out that, as gay men, they have spent their lives seeking equality. If a man and woman are allowed to make certain decisions for the happiness and financial security of their family, shouldn't they be able to, as well?

Jess counters that Bridget is clearly happy, but her friends don't see her situation as rosily as Jess does. They don't even believe that Jess was actually listening to her interview subject.

The discussion here, which runs for the entirety of the film, is undoubtedly challenging and discomforting, but that's because Hersh approaches it with such honesty, without sacrificing sensitivity to the matter at hand. Topics are talked around, lest someone say the wrong thing. Difficult, awkward, and insensitive things are said from time to time, because nobody really knows how to talk about such matters under such a level of stress and uncertainty. Jess even raises the alarm of eugenics when Josh, Aaron, and others bring up the topic of terminating the pregnancy.

She's right from a certain perspective. Josh and Aaron are correct from another. Jess is right in thinking she might be able to raise the child on her own with some financial help from her friends and a trust fund in her name. Other people are correct that Jess might be sacrificing her future, might be fitting into a cultural stereotype, and might not really have a full understanding of everything that will come from that decision.

Eventually, everyone becomes set in a choice. Those choices clash, and so, too, do the people making them. As the arguments escalate, we watch and hear as Jess jumps to conclusions, puts words in the mouths of other people, and accuses her friends and family members of holding horrifying beliefs. There's a key edit that Hersh makes late in the film. Just after Jess has one final meeting with Bridget, who plainly doesn't tell Jess what she wants to hear, we immediately see Jess at a café with another mother of a child with Down syndrome. She tells Jess exactly what she does want to hear, and the vital part is that we know Jess knows the conversation will go exactly as she wants it to.

Throughout all of the compassionate character work and thoughtful debates and heightened tensions, Hersh has been subtly telling this story—a character study of someone who is convinced that she is so good and decent and incapable of doing wrong that anyone who disagrees with her is the opposite of those qualities. A skillful and probing drama, The Surrogate is always much more than it seems.

Note: Monument Releasing is partnering with independent theaters for a virtual release of The Surrogate. Half of net proceeds from rentals will go directly to the theater of your choosing. Instructions for renting the film and how to choose your local theater are available here.

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