Losing Isaiah

About Losing Isaiah

Losing Isaiah is a 1995 drama film starring Jessica Lange and Halle Berry, directed by Stephen Gyllenhaal. It is based on the novel with the same name by Seth Margolis. The screenplay is written by Naomi Foner Gyllenhaal. The original music score is composed by Mark Isham. The film is marketed with the tagline "Who decides what makes a mother?"

Jessica Lange is Margaret Lewin, a white social worker who works in a hospital. Halle Berry is Khaila Richards, a black drug addict who is addicted to crack cocaine. The film starts with her breastfeeding her baby in an abandoned squat. As she lays the child down to leave, the other squatters tell her that she can't leave the baby there crying. Khaila takes the child outside and hides him in a box in the trash so that she can go get high. She promises to come back, puts a board over the box, and leaves. The next morning, the trash is being collected and everything is thrown in the garbage truck, but at the last moment the workers hear a baby crying and he gets rushed to the hospital.

At the hospital, Margaret a social worker finds out he was born crack addicted and that his name is Isaiah. She develops a strong bond with him and decides to bring him home to live with her husband and daughter. In the meanwhile, Khaila wakes up and notices that her breasts are leaking milk but that her baby is not there. She runs to the garbage hysterical and starts rooting through the trash looking for Isaiah. A bum comes out and tells her to leave saying that there had been enough ruckus that morning with police talking about dead babies. After realizing what has happened, she leaves. Later that night, she is arrested for shoplifting and enters a rehab program.