Motherhood is an unforgiving job. No matter what you do it’s never good enough. You have to deal with your husband, boyfriend, and your kids. It’s always this, go here, get dinner ready and so many other things I’m not even saying right now. Being a mother is a godsend these days and throughout history. Babes deals with giving birth and the lead-up to it and subsequent things mothers have to deal with after giving birth. Things don’t get easier for them.

Eden (Ilana Glazer, Rough Night)  has been a very good friend to  Dawn (Michelle Buteau, Always Be My Maybe) ever since they were children. They haven’t been separated for very long in their lives. Dawn is pregnant with her second child and it has become a big issue. Pregnancy the second time around hasn’t agreed with her very much. Eden tries to be there for her in every way possible, but when she meets a man on a train they hit it off. 

Next thing you know she is pregnant and needless to say she’s going through all the same things her friend went through during her two pregnancies. There is a lot of stuff involving the friendship between these two women that makes this story about women giving birth to children funny. They have great chemistry together and some of the things they do during the pregnancy process lead to a lot of hilarious moments. I genuinely laughed a lot during this movie.

One of my favorite parts of the film was the fertility doctor played by John Carroll Lynch. He came across as a straight man so the jokes can happen around him. One running gag is his hair. Sometimes he has hair plugs, a toupee, or a hat. You never know what he’s going to have on his head. In reality, he’s a bold man so this is the director Pamela Adlon trying to be funny. Both Glazer and Buteau had some hilarious moments during these scenes as. I don’t want to spoil them here though. Viewers need to experience these themselves. 

The movie has some good character actors besides the ones I mentioned in Key roles. One of them is Hasan Minhaj as the husband of Buteau’s character. He has a lot to deal with regarding his wife and the mother of his children in the film. He seems just like I would feel in this situation. Completely exhausted! Oliver Platt plays the father of the Glazer character and he acts as if he’s happy for her and the impending grandfather hood he’s about to become, but that’s it. He does want anything else to do with the child rearing circumstances.  He’s pretty in a small role. Sandra Bernhard as the owner of a dentist office is funny in a small role as well. The supporting cast compliment the two leads nicely.

The director tries to put as many jokes as she can into this film. Bathroom humor and baby birthing humor are the two main kinds of laughs she’s going for. The two leads, I’m sure, do a lot of ad libbing to bring hilarity. Their back and forth and banter bring quite a fee laughs. Some of the stuff is geared towards mothers and women in general, but it was funny to me nonetheless.  I laughed constantly at these two and their situation.

Babes is geared to mothers, parents and women in general. The baby birthing humor is non stop. Any and all situations involving giving birth, raising a child and the lead up and aftermath of having children are one the tables to be poked fun at. They don’t miss a moment either. Everything is fair game. The cast especially the two leads Glazer and Buteau are good, but the scenes involving Carroll Lynch are the funniest and had me in stitches. I’m not the target audience for this movie, I enjoyed it nonetheless. I found these circumstances pretty perfect to see being made fun of. This is going to get a lot of women to see it and you never know they may bring their husband and boyfriends as well.

4 stars

Dan Skip Allen