After years of fielding questions about whether she wants to be a mom, Lauren Miller Rogen gives the definitive answer in the form of her witty, heartfelt comedy Babies.
Written and directed by Miller Rogen, Babies stars Anna Kendrick and the auteur’s husband Seth Rogen as the happily married Aaron and Annie, a couple without kids of their own who are constantly asked about why they don’t have any.
When their friend Eliza (Kate Berlant) leaves her husband Luke (Dan Stevens), she and her young daughter move in with the couple, giving them a chance to test drive being parents. Rogen’s Aaron hilariously compares the opportunity to receiving a Baskin Robbins sample.
Rogen and Kendrick share the kind of onscreen chemistry that makes you think they could be pretty great parents — or if you are a parent, it might make you jealous of their child-free dynamic. Either way, they swap quips back and forth in the same effortless way they express love and care for one another.
Berlant and Issa Rae play their longtime friends Becky and Eliza, both at different stages of parenthood with very different parenting styles.
As Eliza, Berlant gives a hilariously high-strung performance of a recently single mom trying to figure out her divorced life. Rae plays the seemingly perfect working mom, who has her hands full with a snarky teen daughter, a baby on the way and a gallery she’s starting with Annie.
Stevens and Zach Cherry complement their onscreen spouses with their own unique takes on fatherhood — Stevens as the unreliable co-parent who adores his daughter while neglecting his wife, and Cherry as the constantly reliable dad who is cooler than his daughters can admit.
The talented ensemble of seasoned actors is adequately matched by their child co-stars, each brimming with personality.
It’s safe to assume the film came from a personal place for Miller Rogen, who along with her husband has taken numerous questions from the media over the years about their decision not to have kids.
“What f*cking business is it of yours?” Rogen asks in one voice-over, a question he’s likely been holding in during many an interview over the years.
The film also deals with the pain and uncertainty of a sick parent, mirroring the filmmaker’s own experience with her late mom’s Alzheimer’s, which inspired the couple’s Hilarity for Charity nonprofit.
A sincere comedy about the ups and downs of life, Babies offers a balanced critique of parenthood that gives good parents their due while also celebrating the beauty of chosen family, as well as the joys of being able to go to the movies alone in the middle of the day, smoke a joint in your own home, and have sex whenever you want with the bedroom door unlocked.
Title: Babies
Festival: Toronto (Gala Presentations)
Director-screenwriter: Lauren Miller Rogen
Cast: Anna Kendrick, Seth Rogen, Issa Rae, Dan Stevens, Kate Berlant, Zach Cherry, Ed Helms, Ashley Park, Sharon Stone, David Strathairn
Sales agents: AGC Studios, CAA
Running time: 1 hr 37 mins
