Films for Breakfast

The key to any good, character-driven comedy can often be boiled down to two things – the first of which is simply whether or not the film is funny; a very simple thing to check-off for a film intending to make you laugh. The second is the chemistry between your leads, which is where Babes finds a lot of its success. The film follows Eden (Ilana Glazer) after she gets pregnant after a one-night stand and tries to find support within her best friend Dawn (Michelle Buteau), who is a mother herself. Dawn helps Eden navigate the ups and downs of pregnancy, while also trying to enlighten her to everything that motherhood may endure as well.

Luckily for Babes, in addition to the stellar chemistry from Glazer and Buteau, the film is naturally extremely funny. The film is directed by Pamela Adlon in her directorial debut, and it’s always so clear when a comedian is behind the camera, as they can often get great comedic performances from their actors. My only real gripe with the humor in Babes is that it sometimes relies a little too heavily on bodily-fluid and gross-out humor, which is extremely hit or miss. On the other hand, there’s also a heavy reliance on character-driven jokes and situational comedy, all of which is nailed and only adds to the relationship between the two lead characters.

One of the most surprising elements of Babes for me was that of the heart, which I found to be incredibly endearing. Of course, Glazer and Buteau’s chemistry does a lot of heavy-lifting here into making us feel for these characters and buy into their relationship with one-another – but I think the true star of the film is screenplay from Ilana Glazer and Josh Rabinowitz. The film attempts to tell a genuine story about motherhood and found family, and I think it succeeds more often than not. There are some rushed plot elements, particularly in the first half, but by the end I found myself really caring for these characters and their relationships with one-another.

While I think the film does use gross-out and bodily-related humor more often than it needs to, the film has a fairly impressive supporting cast at its disposal as well that elevate the material as well. One of the best elements of the film features the great John Carroll Lynch as Eden’s doctor, and these scenes represent the best of what the film has to offer; jokes based within the realities of pregnancy and doctor check-ups that also are genuinely well written and progress the story forward in an amusing way.

Clocking in at 104 minutes, Babes wisely never overstays its welcome and truly flies by. The first half has some spotty elements in terms of narrative decisions that feel a bit rushed and not quite as dramatic as they seemingly should be, but as the film progresses, it eventually finds its footing and becomes an incredibly amusing comedy that balances humor and character-based drama very well. While it won’t reinvent the wheel for the genre, Babes coasts off a thoughtful, tight-knit screenplay and the infectious chemistry between its two leads. It’s well worth your time!

3.5/5