The central relationship in Babes reaches its climax when pregnant yoga teacher, Eden (Ilana Glazer), reveals that she feels betrayed that BFF-since-childhood Dawn (Michelle Buteau) is prioritising time with people she has known a fraction as long – her husband and kids. That this conversation lands as both hilariously funny and poignantly true is the secret of Babes’ powers. It has its craving-induced Cheetos and eats them, thanks to a screenplay attuned to the fact that emotionally needy adult friendships are as absurd as they are full of life-expanding warmth.
We are dropped into Eden and Dawn’s friendship as they meet for their annual tradition of a Thanksgiving morning movie. It’s a ritual honoured despite the tortured commute inflicted by Dawn relocating from their shared neighbourhood, Astoria, to the Upper West Side. Glazer, who co-wrote the screenplay with Josh Rabinowitz, remains best known for TV’s raucous joyfest, Broad City, and this – its slightly more grown-up twin is equally sluiced in New York mentality, pivoting around what it means to live in one borough over another, and animated by characters with a capital C.
Dawn’s waters break before the trailers end. This doesn’t stop the duo going for a slap-up lunch. From the off, there is a shame-free worship for womanhood: from our bodily functions, to our wild impulses, to the wellspring of love we have for our chosen family. ‘Your vagina looks like it’s yawning,’ Eden tells Dawn, more fascinated by her friend’s anatomy than she is motivated to take her to hospital.
This fast-paced pregnancy comedy has its craving-induced Cheetos and eats them
The freewheeling charm and gorgeous chemistry between the two leads means that the narrative container sneaks up in between breast-pumping and shrooms-taking. After a tryst with Claude (If Beale Street Could Talk’s Stephan James – always compelling) Eden falls pregnant. Claude is not available, but she decides to have the baby anyway, causing her to become codependent on her ride-or-die. Dawn is already stretched to breaking point by the demands of – deep breath – a new baby, a regressing first child, a return to her dentist job, a lack of time to have sex and ancient exploding pipes to splatter her home in ‘Thomas Jefferson’s shit’.
Better Things creator Pamela Adlon’s directorial debut deftly juggles fast-paced anecdotal comedy with rich, moving character work, while upending pregnancy myths with the ferocity of a woman stamping on her oppressive breast pump. Scene-stealing work from the likes of Sandra Bernhard, John Carroll Lynch and Elena Ouspenskaia layer up the sense that, in the world of Babes, every life is a tiny miracle.
In UK cinemas Aug 9.