'Babes' Review: For the Broad City Babies With Babies
If you cracked my mind open like a walnut, you'd see the words "yas queen" carved on the side of my brain. Those brilliant Broad City bishes, Abbi Jacobson and Ilana Glazer, shaped part of my not-so-millennial-not-so-Gen-Z sense of humor. In high school, during this website’s early days, I was obsessed with the Comedy Central series about the aimless, stoner, working-class 20-something women navigating NYC and getting into crazy millennial misadventures. The deep camaraderie between the timid Abbi Abrams and outgoing Ilana Wexler had me laughing throughout the years – even after the Hillary Clinton episode. Enough time has passed, get over it. If you weren’t there for Abbi’s bisexual arc, then you weren’t a real one. Cut to today, where I’m the same age as the duo was towards the end of the series. Oh, how unforgiving Father Time is. Long after its finale, Glazer kept that Broad City buoyancy alive. In her newest flick, Babes – which co-stars Michelle Buteau and is co-written by Broad City vet Josh Rabinowitz – Glazer couples it with a bundle of joy. Nevertheless, the Pamela Adlon directorial debut comedy will bring Broad City babies back to their roots.
Image copyright (©) Courtesy of NEON
R: Sexual material, language throughout, and some drug use
Runtime: 1 Hr and 49 Minutes
Production Companies: FilmNation Entertainment, Range Media Partners, Starrpix
Director: Pamela Adlon
Writers: Ilana Glazer, Josh Rabinowitz
Cast: Ilana Glazer, Michelle Buteau, John Carroll Lynch, Oliver Platt, Sandra Bernhard, Stephan James, Hasan Minhaj
Release Date: May 17, 2024
Only In Theaters
NYC-based childhood besties Eden (Ilana Glazer) and Dawn (Michelle Buteau) are on different sides of adulthood. Dawn is married with a son and lives on the Upper West Side. Eden is a carefree, single, at-home yoga instructor in Astoria. During their traditional Thanksgiving hang, Dawn, pregnant with her second baby, enters labor. Eden assists her birthing BFF, welcoming her second child with the support of Dawn’s husband, Marty (Hasan Minhaj). Later that eventful Thanksgiving evening, on her lengthy ride back home, Eden meets Claude (Stephan James), a charming actor who happens to live by her. Their sparked connection spurs throughout their travel leading to them hooking up. Upon a tragic ghosting and light assumption that she can’t get pregnant while on her period, Eden finds herself pregnant and decides to have the baby. While Dawn struggles with her second kid, she assists Eden through her babymaking chapter head-on, as their friendship faces endless obstacles.
Glazer and Rabinowitz's joint screenplay adds the lovable Broad City flair to the baby-making process, ripping up the infamous pregnancy guide and sharing what to *really* expect when you're expecting. Drained by the romanticization of the baby incubation experience in media, Babes mines witty, familiar humor from the underrepresented aspects of the process, like how comically long the needles used for amniocentesis are or acknowledging the placenta part of the birthing.
If you know Ilana Wexler, you know Eden. They’re so similar you can make the headcanon that this is Wexler in her 30s, and no one can tell you otherwise. If Broad City was your cup of tea, Glazer’s energetic thespian line deliveries will spark nostalgia, like reuniting with an old friend you missed dearly. Every time Glazer rants with rapid hand movements, a wave of serotonin washes over me.
Ilana might've been my queen in 2014, but I wasn’t familiar with Michelle Buteau's game. As Dawn, she perfectly foils Glazer's Eden with her confidence and bluntness, acting as a mother, sister, and friend to her – and the audience’s avatar. The range Buteau brings to the table impresses from the opening credits sequence where she delivers great physical comedy, crawling on the floor in the hospital while in labor, striking the tone in the process. In those beats where their friendship hits a wall, Buteau shows impeccable dramatic edge, firmly dealing with those emotional moments.
Refreshingly, Babes tells it like it is on the adult friendship front. Through its humor and bold, truthful moments, it deconstructs the tribulations besties face while juggling motherhood and family life in all its crushing demands. In the poorly timed circumstances that affect Dawn and Eden, you actively root for their friendship to prosper. The film balances its focus between parties and their respective, exhaustive chapters. But at the end of the day, their sisterly bond is necessary.
Eden and Dawn's longstanding friendship wouldn't be as investing if it weren't for Glazer and Buteau's lively onscreen chemistry as acting as the film’s beating heart. The peak millennial humor ranging from a "bitch” enunciation banter, pregnancy hype-sesh photoshoots, and a new vacation invention called “Baby Moon” is hilarious. Yet, the distinctive personas of the leads and glowing camaraderie give them all a powerful punch.
Adding a weight of resounding maturity that separates Babes from Broad City is Pamela Adlon's grounded direction, allowing the script to hone a balance between the witty and relatable. Playing a bit like a Nora Ephron flick (which they reference), Adlon’s personalized depiction of NYC feels as if the viewer is piercing through the veils of her characters’ inner lives – shaping it as a tertiary character. Instead of acting as a playground, the NYC neighborhoods (Astoria-based for Eden and the UWS for Dawn) and the distance between them play into the conflict, especially regarding Eden’s co-dependency on Dawn. Even in the highly romantic yet brief connection shared between Eden and Claude, set through a jazzy, classic rom-com soul, Adlon’s earthly nature in her lens sells the set-up’s most challenging feat: have their meet-cute be so strong, that it contributes to Eden's decision to become a momma. Adlon crafts some of the hottest sexual tension-building I’ve seen this year – even more so than Challengers.
Babes is strongly paced, never feeling as if it’s ever overstaying its welcome. However, at times it benches character potential for an extensive comical bit. One in particular involves Bernie (Oliver Platt) as Eden’s agoraphobic “bad” dad who appears briefly and has the richest scene within the movie. Yet, Eden emphasizes how much he sucks on several occasions. So that area is a pretty undeveloped hurdle.
Babes is a heartwarming, hilarious portrait of what to *REALLY* expect when you’re expecting. Carried by Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau’s mother-coded dynamic that makes them glow as besties, this baby-making comedy stands out as one of the biggest bundles of joy this year has to offer.
Rating: 4/5 | 82%
