Among life’s biggest disappointments is a movie you wanted to love and didn’t. Alas: That’s what happened with “Babes.” The elements that promised joy were all there, starting with two very funny comic talents in Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau. There’s a screenplay by Glazer and Josh Rabinowitz, who was a producer on “Broad City,” the kooky, beloved show in which Glazer co-starred. And perhaps most of all, it’s directed by Pamela Adlon, whose chops for this kind of material — a buddy comedy about pregnancy, parenthood and grown-up life — were perfectly honed by her show “Better Things,” which I staunchly believe is among the best TV ever made.
But sometimes a pile of good ingredients doesn’t make something delicious, and I guess that’s what happened here. The marketing for “Babes” suggests something akin to “Bridesmaids,” the runaway 2011 hit that reminded Hollywood that raunchy comedies starring women can be hilarious and profitable. “Bridesmaids” owes some of its punch to its rapid-fire rhythm, the pileup of relentless jokes both verbal and physical.
“Babes” has plenty of raunch, but it’s otherwise very different. The setup is fairly modest: Eden (Glazer) and Dawn (Buteau) have been best friends since they were kids, and they’re still each other’s person, even though Dawn and her husband, Marty (Hasan Minhaj), moved to the Upper West Side and have a kid just barely out of diapers. Meanwhile, over in Astoria, Eden is free-spirited and single. Dawn and Marty’s second baby is born on Thanksgiving Day, and on the way home from the hospital Eden meets Claude (Stephan James) on the subway. Instant sparks fly, and their connection is undeniable, but Claude goes AWOL after their night together.
And then, about a month later, Eden realizes she’s pregnant. When Dawn promises to be there for her, she decides to have the baby. But in friendship, as in all kinds of love, the course never does run smooth.
“Babes” is, obviously, about pregnancy, which gives plenty of opportunity for body humor involving fluids and openings and other matters. But it’s just as much about friendship, and about the struggle to maintain connections when life circumstances change. It’s also about how frustrating young parenthood can be, even if you have the ability to pay for help and don’t worry about the roof over your head. In sum, you can almost hear the movie saying, adult life is a land of contrasts, and you’d better just hang on for the bumpy ride.
All of which is funny. Pregnancy is still relatively uncharted territory in mainstream comedy, probably because it’s hard to write jokes about it if you haven’t gone through it, and a sizable chunk of comedy writers hasn’t. Friendship is more commonly plumbed for comedic material, but “Babes” is somewhat rare for focusing mostly on the everyday bits of friendship — babysitting your friend’s kid, going to the movies, wanting to just drop by unannounced — that tend to play better in a hangout sitcom, with plenty of character development, than in a feature-length film. There are a bunch of funny gags, too, the best of which involves the ever-evolving hairstyles of Eden’s long-suffering obstetrician (John Carroll Lynch).
But there’s a looseness to the delivery and the rhythm of the performances that doesn’t match the ping-ponginess of the script. It’s less about any element being wrong on its own and more of a mismatch, at least in the scenes where Glazer and Buteau’s characters are meant to be riffing on a long, intimate friendship. Sometimes it feels like the jokes are funnier to the characters than to us, which leaves us feeling as though we’re being excluded. Nobody likes that.
Adlon’s style has always struck me as drawn out of the 1970s, a little meandering, some time to think and look at the screen, and that’s shown off to good effect in the film’s more contemplative scenes. But that same calmness means Eden, by contrast, starts to be grating. Glazer’s energy is generally chaotic, and I mean that in a good way — but stuck in the middle of this less chaotic film, she seems to embody the kind of woman who used to be quirky and cute in her 20s and is now just exhausting to be around. Eden knows she’s “a lot,” as she tells Dawn, but after a while you get the sneaking suspicion that she’s being cute on purpose, and it feels like compensating for something. Whatever it is, it starts to be hard to be around her.
Watching “Babes,” I found myself thinking of movies like Nicole Holofcener’s “Walking and Talking” and “You Hurt My Feelings,” both comedies about relatively privileged New Yorkers that deal with the mundane intricacies of intimate relationships. What makes those movies work — especially since most of the characters are a little grating — is their intense self-awareness. Being a friend or a sister or a parent is a lifelong process, and it’s really hard, and you’re always going to fail.
By contrast, while Eden and Dawn both evolve a little, the direction of their development is oddly unclear. At the end of the day, that renders “Babes” unsatisfying. There’s substance here, and talent in spades, but it needed a little more time to gestate.
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