“No one tells you about this part,” Dawn tells her best friend, Eden, who, after pushing for several minutes to give birth to her baby, learns that she must also expel the placenta before you can rest.
This scene alone sums up the intention of Pamela Adlon, who, after having notably played roles in the series The Leftovers And Better Thingsgoes to the other side of the camera to Babes, a hilarious comedy about female friendship and the ups and downs of motherhood. In this film, as funny as it is charming, everything that we are not told about the joys of childbirth is revealed, displayed, even shouted, without shame or complexes. And it’s refreshing.
Dawn (Michelle Buteau), a thirty-something dentist who is heavily pregnant, leads a busy life with her husband and four-year-old son. As the film begins, she goes to the movies with her best friend, Eden (Ilana Glazer, who also co-wrote the film with Josh Rabinowitz), a tradition they have honored every Thanksgiving for more than 25 years.
However, when Dawn notices that all the seats she sits on are wet, she asks her friend to look at the state of her cervix, for fear of having broken her water. Inspection done, the baby arrives. After a trip to the restaurant, the two accomplices go to the hospital, where the second will hold the first’s hand throughout the delivery. More than friends, Dawn and Eden form a family.
However, things become complicated when Eden also becomes pregnant after a one-night stand, and decides to keep the baby and raise him alone… or rather with Dawn. While the latter struggles to keep her head above water, between two young children, a return to work and a move, Eden will be left more and more to herself. Both, disappointed and abandoned, will experience for the first time the challenges of friendship as adults.
Little sister of Bridemaids (2011), Babes relies unceremoniously on bodily functions and fluids to make you laugh, certainly, but also to illustrate all the nuances and limits – or their absence – in the friendship of two women who grew up together. No anthology scenes like in the classic scripted by Kristen Wiig, but a succession of gags which manage to fit into the logic of the scenario.
Thus, Pamela Adlon delivers a brutally honest film – which spares neither smiles nor empathy – about what leads and follows the birth of a baby, from hormonal shocks to gynecological appointments, including the vagaries of libido, postpartum depression, overwork, the pressure of breastfeeding and the surprises that come with diaper changes, pee firefighters to boot.
Everything is embodied with exuberant joy and touching vulnerability by two actresses as skillful as they are charismatic, who, despite their different approaches to acting – Michelle Buteau is grounded and more subtle, while Llana Glazer sparkles like champagne – complement each other wonderfully. and embodies a complicity in which we recognize ourselves or which we secretly dream of.
This roller coaster friendship culminates in a candy-pink finale that completely breaks with the relational complexity stated, but which manipulates the codes of the fairy tale to its advantage to remind women that the side roads are as valid as they are promising.