Babies

TIFF Film #13

You know what? I was really charmed by this film. You take an ensemble filled with some of the best comedic working actors at the moment. Shoot them in one of the most cinematic cities in the world, on film, and explore a subject matter that is rarely done with so much nuance, and you get a pretty enjoyable movie.

It's a good sign that this film ended, and I wanted more. I wanted to live in these characters' world for longer. I wanted to explore the side characters and their relationships more.

Narration is a very hard thing to pull off and do it well and I don't think this film nails it; instead, it begins to feel a bit like a crutch, as if they are not trusting the viewers to process the complexities that are going on inside of our characters' heads. In saying all of this, though, we get a really lovely resolution by the end of the movie with the final narration that makes the rest of it click a little better.

There's simply just too much in this movie. I think it would have made a wonderful mini-series where we get to live in these characters' heads a little more. We primarily follow Anna Kendrick's character dealing with whether or not she would like to have children, but randomly for a 10-minute section, we end up in Seth Rogan's head and while it's interesting enough, it doesn't justify its inclusion in the movie as we aren't with him long enough. It either should have streamlined and focused solely on Anna Kendrick's contending with this decision or expanded it up more and given us more insight into other characters.

The film has something really definitive to say by the end of the film; it's something that resonated quite deeply with me, and it framed this decision not only of having children, but of making the choices that you do in life in such an intelligent way - kind of rewired my own thoughts about bigger life decisions so that's massive. And while I do love where we end up and I love hearing our character explicitly say this, I wish the film actually showed more of this dilemma throughout instead of it reaching this conclusion very quickly.

Yeah, I was weirdly charmed by this, very much my speed of film, neurotic individuals who are overthinkers and placing them in this world which is hyper-comedic but also doesn't shy away from the darker moments in life. Kind of loved it