Michelle Buteau (Survival of the Thickest) and Ilana Glazer (Broad City), two of the funniest women working today, are tackling pregnancy in the new comedy Babes.
Directed by Better Things creator Pamela Adlon (in her feature directorial debut), Babes follows lifelong best friends Dawn (Buteau) and Eden (Glazer) who are at different stages of adulthood. While Dawn has two kids, a husband, and a stable career, Eden enjoys a carefree single life of hook-ups and recreational drugs. But when Eden gets pregnant from a one-night stand and decides to pursue single motherhood, the duo embarks on a hilarious journey through pregnancy and parenthood.
Babes also stars Hasan Minhaj, John Carroll Lynch, Oliver Platt, Sandra Bernhard, the Lucas Brothers, and Stephan James. The script was written by Glazer and Josh Rabinowitz (Ramy). The film received rave reviews upon its premiere at SXSW in March.
Babes seems poised to be the next big female friendship comedy, my personal favorite genre that includes Bridesmaids, Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion, Girls Trip, and Joy Ride, to name a few.
And Babes is an especially welcome addition as there are not nearly enough comedies about pregnancy and motherhood told from a woman’s perspective. I don’t think we’ve had a comedy that centered on pregnancy since Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s Baby Mama in 2008. That was 16 years ago! That baby can drive now!
As a mother of two, I am eternally shocked that there aren’t more comedies that delve into the gross-out body horror that is pregnancy. Most films about pregnancy focus on the man’s ineptitude or fear of parenthood (see Nine Months, Knocked Up, etc.) But it’s high time we get the female perspective on the radical and life-changing experience that is pregnancy and childbirth.
A raunchy pregnancy comedy is long overdue, and with brilliant moms like Buteau, Glazer, and Adlon at the helm, I do not doubt that Babes will break barriers and become the next huge women’s comedy.
Babes opens in theaters on May 17.
(featured image: NEON)
