Review: Vanessa Kirby gives a shattering performance in the Netflix drama 'Pieces of a Woman'

In the bruising melodrama "Pieces of a Woman," Vanessa Kirby does something remarkable and rare — or at least, she makes it seem rare. She brings sharp emotional definition to a character who, in the throes of a devastating loss, refuses to make her feelings easily readable, or consolable, for those around her. Not for her partner, who can scarcely contain his own spasms of grief. Not for the nosy family friend who pulls her into a hug at the supermarket, promising her that justice will be served. And least of all perhaps for the viewer, whom the movie sometimes brings in agonizingly close and sometimes keeps at an equally painful distance, as if to suggest the limits of our understanding and maybe even our right to understand.