BABES

Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+

Finally, another movie that actually lives up to its promise! It’s been nearly a month since I saw a narrative feature that was actually as good as anyone could expect it to be (the last one being Challengers—a very different kind of movie). Much more to the point, I can’t even remember the last time I saw a mainstream studio comedy that actually lived up to its promise. One could make the case for last year’s American Fiction, although that’s more of an intellectual dramedy. Although a couple of other comedies in the meantime have also been good, the best comparison I can come up with is You Hurt My Feelings, which features a similar caliber of laughs, and was released a year ago this month.

The point is, mainstream studio comedies that are this good—and this genuinely funny—are a rare thing anymore, largely because people don’t go to the movies to see them anymore. Why bother, when it costs far less to wait until it’s either on VOD or a streamer, and it will be available to watch that way within a month or two? There’s no visual spectacle to make the case for seeing it in a theater, leaving me as one of the few holdouts left who love seeing movies in the theater no matter the genre. But am I going to tell anyone they need to rush out and see Babes in theaters? Nope. The trick, I guess, is to get you to remember that I still say it’s very much recommended, once you do see it on streaming.

I hesitate to call Babes a “gross-out comedy,” mostly because you don’t really see anything particularly gross onscreen. What you do see, is people discussing gross things onscreen—specifically, things relating to childbirth. For instance: “Oh my god, did I just shit on my baby?” “No, it’s more like you babied on your shit.” The comparison to Bridesmaids is an apt one insofar as this is a film with female leads who talk about gross things you don’t often see discussed in movies, but in a genuinely funny way.

The impressive trick of Babes is how it follows the standard beats of a romantic comedy while avoiding the most common tropes. This is a love story between lifelong platonic best friends Dawn (Michelle Buteau) and Eden (Ilana Glazer), where one of them, Dawn, is married and has two kids—one of which is born in the opening sequence of the movie—and the other one, Eden, decides to keep the baby that is the result of a one night stand.

And even though the overall story arc is fairly predictable—there is a rift between them which they must eventually overcome—it’s the details of storytelling here that really set Babes apart. What becomes of the man Eden hooked up with is surprisingly not revealed in the trailer and is such a genuine surprise I won’t spoil it here, except to say that it effectively gets that guy out of the way of our story of two best friends without demonizing him. Similarly, Hasan Minhaj plays Dawn’s husband, Marty, and with two young children he proves just as challenged as Dawn, yet supportive, when other movies might characterize him in a far less forgiving way.

Maybe my favorite thing about Babes is its run time, a perfectly respectable 104 minutes, never rushed but also not overlong the way countless studio comedies of the past couple of decades have been. Last year’s No Hard Feelings, which I also very much enjoyed, was about the same length, and I’d love for this to become an identifiable trend. When comedies make the sensible choice of not overstaying their welcome, they lower the risk of narrative lulls, and pack all their punch lines in much more tightly.

And Babes has a lot of punch lines. I laughed a lot at this movie. It could be argued that that’s the only important measure of success with a comedy, but I prefer they also be integrated into a coherent story. Otherwise we might as well just watch a standup special. Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau have great chemistry together, and their improvisational styles complement each other well. These two have reportedly been friends in real life for twenty years, which makes the successful execution of this film—their “baby,” if you will—all the sweeter.

A movie can be both genuinely funny and a quality film, but not often both at once. This is one of those rare specimens that is packed with delightfully dirty humor that belies an authentic sweetness at its core.

Anyone who thinks of their best friend as family will get it.

Overall: B+