Review by Justin Waldman for Mr. Will Wong
First-time feature Director, Pamela Adlon (Californication, King of the Hill) has managed to craft one of the most outrageous, inconceivable (pardon the pun) and hilarious movies about the topic of pregnancy ever. This might also be helped by the fact that it is co-written by and starring the brilliant Ilana Glazer (Broad City), who happens to star alongside Michelle Buteau (Survival of the Thickest) – both incredibly funny women. Babes unexpectedly propels itself to the upper-echelon of Comedies we’ll see this year – even if its Trailer gave away some of the Film’s laugh-out-loud moments.
Eden (Ilana Glazer) and Dawn (Michelle Buteau) have been best friends since they were small children, growing up in NYC doing things together their entire lives. However, now in their adult years, their lives have taken them on separate paths though their friendship very much remains strong and intact. Dawn and Marty (Hasan Minhaj) are expecting their second child, and Dawn refuses to admit that she’s in actual labour on a night out with Eden. Thankfully, she gets to the hospital and the baby is delivered successfully. Some tension brews between the two best friends, and Eden ends up on the subway home alone, where she meets Claude (Toronto’s Stephan James). They hit it off and Eden ends up getting pregnant from their one night stand.
While Eden goes back and forth on whether or not to keep the baby, “Yay, Single Moms/We don’t know she’s going to keep the baby/Yay, Single”, she seeks advice from Dawn. This is where things start to get rough, as Dawn is now a mother of two and has her own family to manage, while Eden is deliberating a life-changing decision without the emotional presence of her best friend. There is a lot of back and forth about what family means, whether they are blood or not, and the responsibilities we assume we owe those closest to us and expect.
BABES thrives under the focused direction of Pamela Adlon, the writing by Ilana Glazer and Josh Rabinowitz, and of course a wonderful Ensemble. Everyone is bringing their A-Game here, and this is what a Broad City movie would feel like. The Movie is undoubtedly one of the funniest to hit theatres in some time and this is a goldmine of the comedic kind.
We also get surprise appearances from Oliver Platt as Eden’s dad, plus many more unexpected moments. BABES is profoundly funny, authentic and we still manage to go on a meaningful journey through it all.
Elevation Pictures release BABES in theatres on Friday, May 24, 2024.
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