A Walk to Beautiful

A Walk to Beautiful will leave you speechless two times over -- first with despair, then with joy. Neither unmentionable subject matter nor nonexistent commercial prospects can keep this documentary from having a power over your heart that is unparalleled.

A complex and quietly devastating indictment of chauvinist societies that see women as lovers, mothers and servants, and treat anyone who can’t fulfill those roles as a nonperson.

An unabashed call to action that shines a spotlight on a problem whose intimate medical nature relegated it to the shadows.

Aside from a few casual digs at the loutishness of the rural Ethiopian male, documentarians Mary Olive Smith and Amy Bucher feel no need to overlay this health-care calamity with pious outrage; any editorial is implied in the immutable facts from overworked gynecologists and the camera's testament.

Competently made, precisely shot and buoyantly humanistic.

A stirring and touching production, and it is difficult not to be moved by the women’s medical progress. However, it suffers from a somewhat leisurely pacing.