Every John Sayles film maintains a delicate balance between Sayles’ seemingly contradictory passions for compelling storytelling and intelligent, ambiguous political discourse.

When these two align seamlessly, as in Sayles’ masterpiece “Matewan” (1987), 1997’s “Men with Guns” (one of the nineties’ most underrated films), or the sleeper hit “Lone Star” (1996), the results are nothing short of virtuosic.

Sayles’ latest, “Casa de los Babys,” has the kind of plot set-up that would make for a great “60 Minutes” episode. Six American women of varying social and political stratospheres, deemed unfit for parenthood by both their bodies and the United States, go to an unnamed South American country to adopt children from a sort of baby farm.

The Americans, interestingly, are only half the movie. Sayles creates a second major story among the Spanish-speaking residents of the unnamed country. The baby farm is really more of a baby hotel, run by Se