Set in the Nigerian immigrant community of Brooklyn, Andrew Dosunmu’s film opens with the wedding of Adenike (Danai Gurira, TV’s “The Walking Dead”) and Ayodele (Isaach de Bankolé), and they are deeply in love. But after 18 months, Adenike still hasn’t conceived a child, and Ayodele refuses to see a doctor to find out if the problem lies with him. Adenike, pressured by her mother-in-law Ma Ayo (the grandly intimidating Bukky Ajayi) and fearful that Ayodele will take another wife, makes the desperate decision to get impregnated any way she can.
Bradford Young, who lensed “Ain’t Them Bodies Saints,” is the cinematographer, and the palette is gorgeous — no jaundiced digital tinge here, the jewel tones of clothing and rooms pop right off the screen. Still, at times the visual vocabulary is jarring, with many extreme close-ups and scenes cropped to withhold information in a way that can seem forced. At other times it works, such as when the camera stays on Adenike alone as she has a world-shattering confrontation with her husband.
Darci Picoult’s script renders all of these characters, if not always sympathetically, humanly and fully. Even Ma Ayo, essentially the villain of the piece, is ruthless but by no means malevolent. It’s just that in “Mother of George,” both urban life and the community’s traditions make it hard to keep private troubles confined to home.