This film pushes in every way, but does it deliver? This explicitly gross comedy about pregnancy and childbirth starring comedians Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau is all about friendship. Pamela Adlon, known for Better Things and a mountain of Voice work bares all directing her first feature length film.
Watch our interview and Q & A with Adlon at Chicago Critics Film Festival where she talked about women in comedy and the “fun” making this film.
Eden (Glazer) and Dawn( Buteau) have no filters throughout the film, from going into labor in a restaurant, during exams and sonograms in the doctor’s office, trying to make a breast pump work, and more. It helped that Glazer, who co-wrote with Josh Rabinowitz, also has a long standing friendship with Buteau. They grew up together in New York City. And it was shot all over, in different neighborhoods, often overnight making a lot of noise, much to the dismay of the neighbors.
In the film, these best friends are in very different points in their lives. Dawn is pregnant and married to Marty (Hasan Minhaj) with a toddler and another about to pop. Eden is still looking for one-night-stands. The film opens with lunch and labor for Dawn and complete chaos getting to the hospital and delivering with bestie Eden recording the delivery.
When Eden has a one-night stand with really nice guy, Claude, (Stephan James), she becomes pregnant. Adlon documents in detail the hundreds of pregnancy tests she takes trying to prove she couldn’t possibly get pregnant until Dawn makes it clear she’s wrong. Exams by Dr. Morris (John Carroll Lynch) confirm and you see every test as Eden progresses.
And the big test, is the one to their friendship, which makes the underlying story. Eden is worried about the change a baby will have on her life. Families are complicated and she decides to make contact with her father (Oliver Platt) who she’s not seen in some time. Adlon shows their meeting as awkward, but touching in one of several more serious scenes in this comedy.
Adlon has daughters of her own and apparently wanted to show what motherhood was really like, comedy and all. If you get queasy seeing what women deal with going through pregnancy and delivery, this is not the movie for you. There are many laughs from the sharp writing and gutsy performances Adlon gets our of Glazer and Buteau. And plenty of nervous laughs reacting to how the female body functions. It’s all about friendship and family, and these Babes let it all hang out.
NEON 1 hour 44 minutes. R
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