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Movie review: ‘Baby Mama’
BY MAGGIE SCOTT
TV’s Saturday Night Live has been a fertile breeding ground for talent that can cross-over from small screen celebrity to big screen star power. Some of its cast has had formidable “legs;” entertaining audiences for years in films after smash hit careers with SNL.
The latest leap that shows promise is Tina Fey and Amy Poehler’s teaming for the comedy “Baby Mama” (Universal Pictures). In addition to SNL, Fey is part of the crew of the series “30 Rock.” Poehler has struck the comedy mother lode with her hysterical impersonation of Hillary Clinton.
With their new debut movie roles as mama wannabe executive Kate Holbrook and scamming surrogate mother wannabe Angela Ostrowiski, the two women prove they are surely the next solid gold comedy team franchise. Kate is 37 and “wants a baby now!” Happy to be single (her mother calls it an “alternative lifestyle”), she has a great career as vice-president of the Round Earth organic markets company.
With personal resources shaping up nicely, but her uterus shaped in a pregnancy-thwarting “T,” Kate makes an appointment with Chaffee Bicknell (Sigourney Weaver), operator of a surrogate mother agency. Compensating the agency making the deal between Kate and the owner of the nine-month leased uterus will go to six figures.
She’s willing to pay the freight, but is ill-prepared for the baggage the rough-edged Angie brings to Kate’s comfortable Philadelphia apartment when Angie has a falling out with her almost-common law husband, Carl (Dax Shepard). For the sake of the baby (that looks like a “squirrel” in the first ultrasound), Kate is willing to cajole, command and coddle the “big kid” having her kid; with variable results.
From her fondness for junk food and red bull to her habit of sticking her gum wads under Kate’s designer sofa table, Angie challenges Kate’s dream of vicariously experiencing the perfect pregnancy. Some things promote bonding…like shopping for strollers; while others, like childbirth class, make Kate think of strangulation not breathing exercises.
Helping make this gestation roller coaster ride a little easier to take are the opening of a new Round Earth store and romance with Rob (Greg Kinnear), the owner of the neighborhood’s Super Fruity juice store. About the time that she has to think up a good explanation for why she isn’t “showing,” Angie begins to feel the pains of a conscience laboring under the weight of deception and unexpected truth.
While Fey effectively eschews slapstick, playing it straight and keeping the punch lines smooth and off-the-cuff, Poehler’s zingers dart out of her google-eyed face like a frog’s tongue snagging an unsuspecting fly.
A convincing combination of satire and social commentary on last-ditch parenthood, this is a bouncing baby winner from writer/director Michael McCullers. Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual humor, language and a drug reference.
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