Trouble with the Kids 

BABES. Despite the inescapable fact that pregnancy, birth and its alternatives have touched literally all of us, the subject has been largely shunted to the margins of contemporary cinema. As recently as the first decade of this strange, lamentable century, a "will they or won't they" dramedy about a birth control mishap would not be a surprising option at the multiplex on a Friday night. It likely speaks to the sickening tilting of our cultural axis, of the rise of fascist fetishization, the renewed marginalization of women and the never-more hateful rhetoric around abortion that funnily poignant movies about accidental pregnancy and the prospect of single-parenthood have all but vanished from the mainstream. As ever, art reflects life, but it is also an important informer of our cultural conversations. And trepidation about "challenging" subject matter — or subject matter that has been thrust to the center of politics and rendered, despite its universality, the basis of senseless violence and ever-widening social fractures — on the part of the gatekeepers is a bad omen, indeed.

Which is a gloomy way to begin discussion of a funny movie about the vagaries of having a baby as an adult human in the modern world; we find ourselves where we find ourselves.

Written by Ilana Glazer and Josh Rabinowitz, and directed by Pamela Adlon, Babes drops into the middle of the decades-spanning friendship of Eden (Glazer), a yoga instructor and definitive denizen of Astoria, and Dawn (Michelle Buteau), her high-achieving married best friend. Dawn and husband Marty (Hasan Minhaj), climbing the ladder of New York City success and expecting their second child, have moved into a brownstone in the city, further exaggerating the metaphorical distance between the two former constant companions.

But Eden and Dawn have put in the work, maintaining routines in spite of the challenges of real life in order to fan the flames of their friendship. So, when a newly postpartum Dawn feels a powerful lust for sushi, Eden sets out to find it. And find it she does, albeit with a shocking, Manhattan price tag. Her return trip to the hospital is complicated by the holiday subway schedule, though, and so she finds herself enjoying an extravagant Japanese feast on her multiple-train ride back to Queens. At which point she meets a handsome, charming fellow inexplicably dressed in a dashing vintage tuxedo. Claude (Stephan James) is himself returning home from a day's work as an extra on a Scorsese picture (weirdly specific but funny enough). They share the sushi and a wide-ranging conversation across their numerous train transfers, eventually spending the night together. Dawn, relentless free spirit that she is, disbelieves that she could possibly have contracted pregnancy from the encounter but is also resilient enough to shake it off when Claude fails to contact her or respond to her texts. (The "twist" regarding his absence is both realistically abrupt but also underplayed.)

And so Eden finds herself debating motherhood as her best-friendship appears to falter in the presence of real-world, grown-up complications.

Ultimately, I may admire Babes more than I actually like it. Pitched as a late-term Knocked Up with the deadbeat elided, its de-politicization of the subject matter in favor of emphasis on the relationships at the center of the story feels natural and topical in its casual insistence. And Glazer and Buteau, two definitively hilarious ladies unafraid of wading into the more anatomical aspects of pregnancy and modern friendship, are almost ideally paired as leads. And Adlon, herself a pitch-perfect comic actor making her feature debut, evinces a calm confidence behind the camera, directing with a veteran's self-assuredness.

The movie sets out to demystify some timeless but also modern notions of adulthood and relationships, a formidable challenge to which it mostly rises. But in the tone of the piece, with its occasional hilarity set against the matter-of-factness with which it constructs the stuff of the characters' lives, there is a tonal dissonance that, while not unpleasant or jarring, seems to work against the intention of its authors. R. 109M. MINOR.

I SAW THE TV GLOW. I cannot claim to have "a show" that has defined or defended or reflected my own life. That said, I have seen every episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer at least three times and in sequence. (I see you, Amber Benson.) So I get at least one element of what Jane Schoenbrun (We're All Going to the World's Fair, 2021) has set out to create here. Outsiders Owen (played in adolescence by Ian Foreman and young adulthood by Justice Smith) and Maddy (Brigette Lundy-Paine) develop a tenuous friendship based on a supernatural mystery series. Though bonded by a fondness for each other and a fascination with the TV show, the two are gradually separated by circumstances both physically immediate and metatextual.

A study in loneliness that blurs the distinction between life as lived and as observed through media, I Saw the TV Glow goes to ambitious, mostly successful lengths to visually construct the reality of a troubled person's inner life. It has in it some near-perfect images and truly unique styles of performance. Still, it resonated with me less than I invited it to. PG13. 100M. MINOR.

John J. Bennett (he/him) is a movie nerd who loves a good car chase.

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For showtimes call: Broadway Cinema (707) 443-3456; Mill Creek Cinema 839-3456; Minor Theatre (707) 822-3456.