REVIEW: ‘Babes’ Serves Up Belly Laughs

Comedy is subjective. The human experience is subjective. That’s why comedy centering itself around the human experience captivates an increasingly large audience. Two television programs that do this well come to mind are Better Things and Broad City. The former, created by Pamela Adlon, is a grounded dramedy about the trials and tribulations of single motherhood. The latter, created by Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson, is a madcap romp transforming the mundane lives of two young New York women into a wacky adventure. Now, Pamela Adlon and Ilana Glazer join forces for Babes (2024). Opening to a raucous response at the 2024 SXSW Film Festival, Babes shakes off a tendency to meander by supplying a steady stream of laughs and a potent relatability.

Directed by Adlon from a script by Ilana Glazer and Josh Rabinowitz, Babes centers around lifelong best friends Eden (Glazer) and Dawn (Michelle Buteau). Eden is a certified free spirit. Dawn just had her second child with her husband (Hasan Minhaj). Yet, the two still make plenty of time to goof around together. After a wild one-night stand with a charming stranger (Stephan James), Eden gets a reality check when she finds out she’s pregnant. Despite the father being out of the picture, Eden decides to keep the baby. For a while, Dawn is her supportive comrade in arms. Things change as Eden’s persistent immaturity and Dawn’s overwhelming stress drive a wedge into their friendship.

Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau are a delight in Babes. Just as she did on Broad City before, Glazer harnesses a lovably chaotic slacker energy. Buteau, on the other hand, rarely gets the chance to shine like this. Her Dawn lights up the screen in the role of a buttoned-up mother bursting at the seams to shed responsibility and let the party girl out. Together, as performers, Glazer and Buteau bring out the best in each other. As for the characters Eden and Dawn, that’s only half true, as they are also bring out the toxic side of each other. Just like real friendship, no?

Much of the laughs come from the two of them riffing on each other. Aided by some potent zingers through Glazer and Rabinowitz’s script, Babes is like watching two funny friends crack each other up. Moreover, Adlon makes that transition smooth when it comes to getting serious. Bumps in the road of friendship are painful. As Babes shows, sometimes coming back together involves hurting each other. This process involves several false starts, moments that seem like the end, and sometimes they are. It’s regrettable that Babes doesn’t afford some of its other serious moments the same level of care.

A subplot featuring Oliver Platt as Eden’s absentee father doesn’t really go anywhere. Similarly, the decision made regarding how the father of the baby, played by Stephan James, exits the movie does work as a dark comedy. That is, until Babes attempts to wring emotion out of that. The domestic drama between Dawn and Hasan Minhaj’s character comes close to working. What the issue comes down to is a lack of proper time to serve these subplots. We don’t have enough information about their life together to make it work, though.  Oddly, it makes sense that the film feels this way, as Adlon is more used to working in the television space. That leads to a few episodes of the story squeezed into a feature film.

What Babes does offer, and where Glazer and Adlon’s sensibilities come together best, is a humorously truthful look at pregnancy. Babes establish pregnancy as an inherently ridiculous concept. Growing a whole ‘nother human inside oneself does bizarre things to the body that lead to all sorts of medical check-ups, procedures to do after birth, et cetera, et cetera. Pamela Adlon plays this body horror as body humor. Babes shines a light on the cruel farce of pregnancy by playing it as a farce. In other words, Babes unequivocally states that pregnancy sucks, but it’s better to laugh at it than sugarcoat it.

Judging by the initial audience reactions, Babes looks to be a winner. And that’s great! Pamela Adlon may bite off a little more than she can chew in her directorial debut, but the parts that work. Come for Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau’s outstanding chemistry. Stay for the treatise on friendship and the cosmic joke that is pregnancy.

Babes (2024) screened as a part of SXSW 2024 and will be distributed by NEON.