Parents' Guide to What We Wanted

Solid performances in this broody film don't lead to a satisfying conclusion. What We Wanted is written, shot, and acted wonderfully, but the story stalls out in the second half. It's a very clearly focused film in the first half, committed to exploring the inner depths, pains, and sorrows of a childless woman and the struggle her husband endures trying to move on and make the best of it. This stereotypical set up doesn't change. The second half is vague because it doesn't know where to go. To conclude the story, the film can't simply deliver a child to Alice or find a sudden way to make Alice okay with not conceiving a child, so it chooses a deus ex machina that ultimately forces everyone to simply go home. There are condolences and niceties. Then with more contentment than before, Alice and Niklas embrace, smile, and kiss, faces far less forlorn for some reason now that they witnessed their vacation neighbor's teen kid try to commit suicide.

Alice and Niklas are likable enough. Their intimately sad portrayal of a couple near the end of a years-long journey to biologically conceive a child is sensitively honest and delivered well. The writing deftly touches upon marital sensitivities that can often take over when dealing with certain issues like this. The only problem is that Alice is very much not into the idea of adoption. This is common, perhaps, but only one conversation is devoted to adoption, and it merely supports Alice's reasons for her limited no adoption position ("I want mine or nothing! It's your eyes, my hair, our features, or nothing!") which only servers to solidify the film's very heteronormative foundations. Additionally, for some alternative families, queer families, adoptee families, single parent families, and even some normative families the stance of these characters (and this film) can make it hard to care about them, Alice's particular pain, Niklas's suffering, and their collective struggle.