Movie Review

Pregnancy tests the relationship of lifelong friends in Babes

Michelle Buteau and Ilana Glazer in Babes

Photo courtesy of Neon

The act of being pregnant has been treated in so many different ways in movie history that it could be considered one of the most malleable plot points of all time. It can be a blessing or a curse (or a blessing that turns into a curse). It can be a happy accident, a longtime struggle, or a complete surprise. And it can be adapted into multiple different genres, from comedy to drama to horror (action seems to be missing from the list, but that day is probably coming soon).

Babes joins the long lineage of comedies based around someone being pregnant, but with it coming from the mind of writer/producer/star Ilana Glazer, the approach is not as sentimental as other films. Eden (Glazer) is best friends with Dawn (Michelle Buteau), who gives birth to her second child early in the film. On her long subway ride back home from the hospital, Eden has a meet-cute with Claude (Stephan James), and the two end up having a one-night-stand that results in her getting pregnant.

Although seemingly unprepared for life as a single mother, Eden pushes ahead with the pregnancy anyway. Expecting Dawn to help her every step of the way given their lifelong friendship, Eden is surprised when the family and job stresses in Dawn’s life take priority over accompanying Eden to doctor appointments. However, Eden’s free spirit nature helps her roll with the punches even as the pregnancy progresses.

Directed by Pamela Adlon and written by Glazer and Josh Rabinowitz, the film – despite having pregnancy at it center – is more about female friendship, self-discovery, and dealing with the changes life throws your way. The relationship between Eden and Dawn is as close as you can get, with each woman unafraid to visually check how dilated the other is, or lay out brutal honesty if the situation calls for it.

As anyone who’s watched Glazer’s sketch show Broad City will know, she doesn’t know a situation that she won’t try to defuse with bawdy humor. And so the film is full of profane conversations, some of which work well, but unfortunately just as many that do not. Eden use a certain feline term for her vagina both with Dawn and with her gynecologist, a lack of situational awareness that demonstrates her unfiltered nature, but feels odd in a film that’s otherwise supposed be grounded in reality.

What’s really strange is that this is Glazer’s second pregnancy-themed movie in a row, following 2021’s False Positive, which she also co-wrote. That film was a (supposed) thriller about a woman possibly experiencing hallucinations during pregnancy, and while this film takes a rosier view of pregnancy in general, it too deals with fears of what having a child can bring. Glazer, who had her first child in 2021, clearly has a lot of thoughts on the effects of pregnancy, even if neither movie is fully successful.

Glazer is at home in the comedic realm and remains an appealing performer despite not all of the situations landing as well as she might have hoped. Buteau is not as well-known, but she ably joins in on the fun with Glazer, and shows off decent chemistry with Hasan Minhaj, who plays her husband. John Carroll Lynch shows up for a one-note role as Eden’s doctor, and Oliver Platt doesn’t register at all as Eden’s dad.

While it has some funny moments, Babes could have used some extra polish to be more entertaining. Glazer and Buteau play well off each other, but in the end the connection their characters forge doesn’t reach the level of the best movie friendships.

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Babes will open widely on May 24.

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Movie Review

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma gives horror a surreal twist

Photo courtesy of MUBI

Hannah Einbinder and Gillian Anderson in Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma.

The horror genre really ramped up in the 1970s and ‘80s, bringing with it a new subgenre - the slasher - that gave audiences new visuals of gore, but also a reliance on sexism and homophobia that would come to define the era. The new film Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma wrestles with that legacy in ways that are funny, thought-provoking, and downright strange.

Kris (Hannah Einbinder) is a queer filmmaker who has been hired to reboot the moldy IP that is the Camp Miasma franchise, one that was fresh in the 1970s but which numerous shlocky sequels have rendered irrelevant. In an attempt to get to know the property better, Kris has scored a meeting with the reclusive Billy (Gillian Anderson), the star of the original film who has shunned the public eye for decades.

Turns out that Billy lives deep in the woods at Camp Rivoli, which served as the location for the first film. As Kris tries to get to know Billy and convince her to be a part of the new film, she starts to fall under Billy’s spell and the lore of the franchise as a whole. That includes believing that the movie’s villain, Little Death - a transgender person who has an air conditioning vent as a head/mask - may not just be a character created for the movies.

Written and directed by Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow), the film at first feels like it’s going to go the straight-up comedy route, with comic explosions of blood, a strange fascination with candy brands, and a production design that does nothing to hide that the two main actors are on a movie set with painted backdrops. This is backed up by Kris’ phone conversations with her girlfriend, Mari (Jasmine Savoy Brown) and her agent (Sarah Sherman), as well as numerous other details.

But the film starts to go down the surreal route the longer Kris stays at the camp with Billy, especially when they sit down to watch the original Camp Miasma. An extended sequence shows a good amount of that film-within-the-film, demonstrating why Kris and Billy have a love/hate relationship with the property. For Kris, though, the lines between the film and the real world start to blur, and Schoenbrun uses a variety of out-there elements to drive the point home.

The final act of the film can barely be described as Kris goes deeper down the rabbit hole, with Schoenbrun using her film to comment on the horror genre as a whole, its treatment of women and LGBT people, the movie industry, and more. All the while the “camp” of Camp Miasma maintains a presence, with candy wrappers showing up everywhere and the tongue-in-cheek references to Little Death (the French term La petite mort, which means “the little death,” is a euphemism for orgasm).

Einbinder, an Emmy winner for Hacks, is the perfect person to inhabit her role. Her established real-life and fictional personas color everything she does in the film, with her enthusiasm and curiosity shining through. Anderson leans heavily into another reference - Norma Desmond from Sunset Boulevard - to create a character that is as mysterious as she is alluring. Supporting actors like Brown, Sherman, Patrick Fischler, Dylan Baker, and Eva Victor keep the movie at the right pitch all the way through.

While other films have made fun of horror movie tropes before, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma finds a wholly unique way of doing so. It’s a funny and daring trip into the psyches of two women who may be victims of their own obsessions, and of the movies that made them that way.

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Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is now playing in select theaters

movies film

Movie Review

Pregnancy tests the relationship of lifelong friends in Babes

Movie Review

Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma gives horror a surreal twist

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