A Child of My Own Review
Director: Maite Alberdi
Date Created: 2026-08-13 19:57
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A Child of My Own Review: Directed by Maite Alberdi and written by Julian Loyola and Esteban Student, Netflix’s Un hijo propio is a Mexican docudrama starring Ana Celeste as Ale, with Armando Espitia as her husband Arturo and Luisa Guzmán among the supporting cast. The film combines dramatised performances with real interviews, archival footage, and testimonies from individuals who have some connection with the case. The film is about 96 minutes long and involves a true crime being portrayed using Ale’s point of view for a good portion of the film.
A Child of My Own Review
A Child of My Own documentary film starts with the character of Eleonor Alejandra Marín Mendoza, who goes by the name of Ale and wants to be a mother after having faced miscarriages. She chooses to continue to lie to her husband and family about the loss and continues acting as if she is pregnant. What starts out as a simple lie slowly grows into an act of nine months, which involves gaining weight, throwing parties, baby showers and getting ready for the arrival of a baby. Things get further complicated when Ale comes across Mayra, who is also pregnant and in situations where Ale believes she can assume responsibility for the baby.
She finally gets to commit a crime involving the kidnapping of the newborn in the hospital. Instead of asking how Ale commits a crime, the film asks why. The aspect of Netflix’s A Child of My Own which was most intriguing about it was its refusal to portray Ale as just the villain. From the start of the movie, I already knew that what I was seeing was a narrative about a woman who would ultimately commit an awful act. Therefore, I did not expect to feel sympathy for her actions at all; however, the movie managed to convince me of the development of events that led to those actions.
Miscarriages are vital for the story because they are not presented as a short narrative that precedes the crime but form the basis of Ale’s emotional state. The woman faces not just the loss of babies, but the judgmental attitude of those around her, who seem to evaluate her life on her ability to give birth. The connection with Arturo, especially that with his family, makes a pretended pregnancy seem like a desperate attempt to cling to a lie to avoid failure.
This is also where I believe the depiction of the mother-in-law works well in this film. No overly theatrical villainy needs to be played here because the persistent expectations and inquiries are enough to demonstrate how pressure becomes a daily routine. The body of Ale becomes an object of observation for everyone around her, and the psychological trauma associated with her miscarriages is not taken into account at all.
In my opinion, it is in this context that the portrayal of the mother-in-law fits this movie perfectly. It does not require any theatrical demonstration of villainy because the constant pressures and questions are sufficient to show how the pressure has become a part of her everyday life. The body of Ale has turned into an object of scrutiny for everyone around her, while the psychological trauma caused by the miscarriages has been overlooked entirely.
A lot of credit needs to be given to Ana Celeste for this one. It is more than just the acting out of a character who lies in the movie. Celeste has managed to demonstrate Ale’s mounting entrapment in the act of lying. There is anxiety that someone can come too close to the truth, thrill in getting the attention she has wanted all along, and finally emotional exhaustion that is more and more apparent.
Moreover, the idea of making the dramatisation seem like another cinematic universe appealed to me. The reconstructed parts appear too perfect and unnatural at first, which fits perfectly with the well-thought-out world created by Ale. However, after turning towards interviews and real images and testimony, all of a sudden, the dramatic narration becomes more difficult to perceive, since it turns out that the whole story is true.
It becomes particularly relevant in view of the fact that Mayra’s version is brought into play. According to Ale, there was a sort of deal about the baby, while according to Mayra, that version does not hold water. This contradiction is vital because it does not allow the viewer to take Ale’s version for granted. It makes us doubt how many things we saw were actually memories of Ale.
But that’s also where Netflix’s A Child of My Own documentary missed the boat, at least as far as I’m concerned. Mayra is the one whose child is taken away, but the movie is still much more focused on the emotions of Ale. And I get that Alberdi made that decision because clearly the movie is focused on the psychology and social factors behind Ale, but I just wish there was more time dedicated to Mayra.
I also believe that the documentary loses some of its power in the way that it continues to go back to Ale’s point of view instead of exploring the discrepancies further. Ambiguity is great, but sometimes I wished the documentary could question these inconsistencies more directly than just asking questions.
However, I enjoyed the way the Netflix movie A Child of My Own chooses not to make its main character either a monster or a victim. Although there are things that Ale has done which cannot be justified solely by her situation, ignoring that context would have made this documentary much less intriguing.
Netflix A Child of My Own Review: Summing Up
Overall, the 2026 A Child of My Own film’s unusual structure of documentary and drama, the role of Ana Celeste, as well as the way the truth emerges slowly were the aspects of the movie that I liked a lot. However, I felt that this movie could have paid equal attention to those whose lives were directly affected by Ale. Even though the movie did not satisfy me completely, it provided me with much food for thought compared to a typical documentary on true crime.
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