Pamela Adlon’s Better Things makes her Better Things turned to film by Ilana Glazer Babes in collaboration with Josh Rabinowitz, starring Glazer, set to release in 2024. With core themes set on pregnancy, range and width of thought modern femininity navigates, womanhood at its multi-layered depth entwined with humor are shed through raunchiness of deep touching emotional growth humors the film’s core structure. Something like “embrace, grow, evolve onward onwards womanish and mother.”
Plot Summary
Two best friends pay off the city of New York through their optical lenses as a dentist and yoga instructor. Eden blooms while practical Dawn nurtures her career. Both women cemented their bond while under Emavate Therapy, kind of like movie therapy, but more to shrine self-growth to heal indulged by deeper emotional roots. Relatable but authentic sense of the term “honesty the uncompromising truth” glimpsed like never before of motherhood through the lens of raw and unfiltered humor with deep love. Through the wild honestly around New York’s pace filled overly buzzing atmosphere, the release of Dawn’s Kenny loses.
Dawn, who has been married to her husband Marty and is already a mother of one, gives birth to her second child coping with the chaos of city life as well as the exhausting hospital bureaucracy. On the other hand, single and somewhat lost Eden, realizes that she is unexpectedly pregnant after a one night stand with a man named Claude.
Eden chooses to keep the baby and raising it alone, which alters the course of her life. This greatly affects her friendship with Dawn, who steps in to support her as the two women navigate the challenges of pregnancy and motherhood together. Both women struggling in their identity crisis find themselves on a blend of laughter and tears as they navigate through pre-natal classes, postpartum emotional storms, daycare dilemmas, breastfeeding woes and everything in between.
Main Characters
Eden (Ilana Glazer): Eden is colorful and chaotic, and not prepared to take on the responsibilities that come with motherhood. Her shift from yoga instructor to a determined single mother serves as the heart of the film. Glazer adds layers of warmth and laughter as she takes on the role.
Dawn (Michelle Buteau): As Eden’s best friend, Dawn is managing a hectic work schedule, her second child, and a stable—if sometimes strained—marriage. Witty and sarcastic, yet grounded in sincerity, she is a deeply funny character who seamlessly blends humor with emotion.
Marty (Hasan Minhaj): Dawn’s husband. Actively engaged as a modern father, Dawn’s husband embodies a uniquely supportive and involved dad. In contrast to the absentee or out-of-touch father trope, he is an attuned and steady presence who showers empathy and calm.
Claude (Stephan James): The enigmatic one-night lover who catalyzes Eden’s pregnancy. While he joins the ensemble as a brief romantic interest, his role as a symbol for Eden’s turning point is salient.
Supporting Cast: John Carroll Lynch, Sandra Bernhard, and Oliver Platt enrich the film with their quirky character portrayals in memorable supporting roles that elevate the film’s tone.
Film Themes
- Female Friendship as the Central Relationship
Instead of relying on a romantic framework, as is common in cinema, Babes focuses on the friendship between Eden and Dawn. Their connection is fierce and chaotic, but remains unbreakable. The film portrays friendship—platonic love—as equally potent and life-altering as romantic love.
- Motherhood Without Scrubs
What distinguishes Babes from other motherhood comedies is the raw portrayal of the mental and physical burdens of parenting. Such scenes include postpartum body shame, body leaks, sheer exhaustion, demented moments, and a fair share of panic. The film opts to focus on the comedy that can be found in the raw parts of being a mother while steering clear from glamorizing or sanitizing the experience.
- Autonomy or Choice
Eden choosing to raise a child by herself showcases the film’s deeper thoughts on women’s autonomy. She is not depicted as a tragic or heroic character, but rather as someone simply trying to navigate life on her own terms. The narrative honors her choices without falling into the trap of providing unnecessary detail or dramatizing her story.
- Redefining Themselves
Both Dawn and Eden undergo identity transformation at different points in the film. Eden has to adopt a new version of herself as a mother while Dawn grapples with her identity away from the figure of a mother and wife. These parallel storylines enrich the emotional depth of the film’s humor.
Tone and Direction
Pamela Adlon’s direction is composed and deeply attuned to the characters’ emotional worlds. Idiosyncratic visual styles are absent in her work; rather, she emphasizes closeness with the characters and sharp, real-world dialogue. The film incorporates stylized elements, such as the mushroom trip hallucination Eden experiences toward the end of her pregnancy, that depict the characters’ internal turmoil.
The humor spans from slapstick to understated sarcasm. Some jokes do lean toward the more crude side of things, such as discussing fluid excretions and breast milk pumping, but the film never strikes a juvenile tone. The film does, however, use comedy to highlight truths too often overlooked in mainstream media’s portrayal of womanhood.
Reception and Impact
Upon release, Babes garnered strong critical praise. Reviewers celebrated the film’s bold defiance of cozying up to challenging topics and highlighting the genuine chemistry between Glazer and Buteau. The script received particular recognition for its crude yet heartfelt nature that evoked both laughter and deep empathy.
Women, in particular, noted the film reflected their realities on-screen without romanticization, which was appreciated. Hollywood narratives traditionally overlook depicting candid explorations of motherhood, female friendship, self-discovery, and the lived experiences of women. This film breaks free from those constraints and offers an authentic portrayal.
Critics also praised Pamela Adlon for her flowing movement from television towards film, and for her blending of humor and heartbreak.
Conclusion
Babes is a vibrant, unapologetically raunchy, and emotional comedy that reimagines what stories about motherhood and female friendship can be. The film breaks with genre clichés and formulaic romantic plots by placing two complex, hilarious, and deeply human women at the center of its story.
It does not only entertain, but it addresses the harsh realities of womanhood in the modern era. Whether one has gone through parenthood or not, Babes serves both humor and heart in equal parts delivered through an outrageous yet authentic storyline.
With daring script, remarkable performances, and direction that favors character rather than spectacle, Babes show that some of the deepest relationships, as well as the funniest moments, stem not from grand romantic arcs, but from the beautifully chaotic journey of life with your best friend.
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