Cushman treats an often perilous and brutal historical period with delicacy, touching on enough of the harshness of the age to bring it to vivid life but muting its cruelest aspects. It is always painful to contemplate filth, poverty, desperate lives of grinding labor, and the truly helpless—orphans, the homeless, and animals—but Cushman presents only what must be shown to be realistic, with all the rendered details put into the service of a moral story. This tale is also presented with adroit finesse. Thus the Midwife's Apprentice has very few social sensitivities that might cause offense; it could be produced as G rated movie without alteration. The few themes or situations that might be potentially objectionable are handled with calming discretion.

There is an illicit romance between the midwife and the married baker with thirteen children, but the details only go so...