mrkwooBaby Mama (2008)
January 27th 2009 02:06
Kate Holbrook (Tina Fey) is VP to a prominent Health Food company and now in her late 30s, she's succumbing to her nagging maternal urges. However, Kate can't seem to find the right guy, the adoption agency can't put a child in her lap for several years and her doctor doesn't like her uterus to have IVF treatment. Desperate and running out of options, she turns to the head of a surrogate company, Chaffee Bicknell (Sigourney Weaver), to find her a "baby mama". Kate finally gets a bone when a working class couple Angie and Carl (Amy Poehler and Dax Shepard) offer to carry her baby. But Angie and Carl soon break up and Angie decides to crash Kate's apartment for the duration of her pregnancy. Meanwhile, as they try to get along, Kate meets Rob (greg Kinnear), who may be the perfect man who's come at a bit of an inconvenient time.
There are a lot of times where the film feels pretty gimmicky, with plenty of idiosyncratic characters (such as Steve Martin's hippie boss to Kate) supplying evenly spread awkward moments and random segues to grab extra laughs when there's a lull in the story. These moments, with Tina Fey's usual mix of sharp wit and fantastical silliness, and were indeed very funny, but they didn't quite disguise the script's lack of originality. It's a credit to both Fey and Poehler as actors who carry this film like pros, able to nail every punchline while also juggling the tender dramatic moments.
Michael McCullers does a decent job at writing and first time directing, making sure the centre stage contains only Fey and Poehler. This is smart of him, since they definitely know what they're doing and I don't know if McCullers has quite got it yet. The script, although failing to create intelligent characters (even Kate is strangely thick sometimes for the sake of the story lasting a few extra minutes), it does do well in capturing the woes of single-womanhood and pregnancy. But he could have done more with the male characters in the film, to make a nice balance to the overall tone, which at best was lightly fluffy. At times it seemed the ladies were doing all the work. Which was fine, as Baby Mama managed to be much funnier than you'd expect, but the lack of proper acting support made it look more like an extended SNL sketch.
The conclusion was slightly disappointing as it dripped with sentimentality which didn't quite fit with the rest of the film. But if you are a fan of Fey and Poehler, then Baby Mama will be a treat, not a disappointment. The leading ladies will charm you with their kooky mishaps and take this film up from what could have been another cheesy and forgettable chick flick. 7/10
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