Pamela Adlon opens Babes with twinkly piano jazz accompanying several images of New York City scene-setting — skylines, Central Park, elevated subway trains, the works — in what feels like a deliberate lampooning of the Woody Allen aesthetic. (To put a finer point on it, Oliver Platt turns up midway through the film as an estranged father who tells his daughter that they’re not about to reconnect, because life is not a Nora Ephron movie.) But this isn’t a They Came Together-style spoof, or even aping the look and feel of those cornerstones to make a satirical point, as Adlon’s former collaborator Louis C.K. did in his ill-fated I Love You, Daddy. She’s simply making a movie about the kind of women that Allen (and, frankly, Ephron) typically didn’t see fit for his New York movies — women whose lives are messy and unmanageable, who call each other “bitch” (affectionate) frequently, and who spend a lot of time talking about bodily functions.
The script is by co-star Ilana Glazer and Josh Rabinowitz, also of Broad City, and that scans; it feels like the next logical step after that show, checking in with characters who are a little older but not quite wiser, a bit more responsible but still capable (and, indeed, often in dire need) of cutting loose. The main shift between those characters and these is the introduction of motherhood — when we first meet lifelong besties Eden (Glazer) and Dawn (Michelle Buteau), Dawn is going into labor with her second child, initially quite casually, though it escalates more rapidly than either of them expect. (“You’ve never seen a bad bitch crawl?” Ilana thunders at passerby, as her friend enters the hospital on all fours.)
On her way home — four trains, on a holiday, to get her from Dawn’s fancy new digs on the UWS to her fourth-floor walk-up in Astoria — Eden finds herself in the midst of a delightful Gotham romance, a courtship that spans that long ride with another Astorian (Stephan James). They vibe, and laugh, and sleep together, and make such a strong connection that Eden is surprised when he doesn’t reply to her texts. Turns out he’s not ghosting her; he died, which is a bummer since she really liked him, and even more depressing when she discovers she’s pregnant.
The story beats that follow don’t veer too far from the expected playbook; Eden decides to have the baby, asking Dawn for all sorts of support that she can barely give to herself and her own family. (There is a full subplot about Dawn’s trouble producing breast milk that’s exactly the kind of authentic, lived-in detail that most movies don’t bother to include.) The dynamics shift — nothing good can come of a conversation that includes the question, “Can I be honest with you?” — and the picture turns serious, though it does so a bit more evenly and gracefully than something like No Hard Feelings or Joy Ride. The pathos of the home stretch feels genuine and earned, even when the writing is a touch too on the nose.
Babes isn’t reinventing the wheel, and it won’t linger in your memory long after the credits roll. But there’s a lot to like about it: a straight-up movie-star turn for Glazer (she holds the big screen as capably as the small), equal footing for the deeply empathetic Buteau, ace supporting turns by character-actor champs Platt and John Carroll Lynch, and deep steeping in the specificity of Astoria, a neighborhood not quite like any other in the city. But most importantly, it’s a film with quite a lot of very big laughs, rooted in both character and candor, and that’s worth celebrating.
B
“Babes” is in theaters this weekend.
