By Jada Cheek
With its fast-paced dialogue, cozy lighting and smooth jazz score, Babe invites you to take part in an exquisite and complex adult female friendship in a way that doesn’t often get screen time. It is admirable how throughout Dawn and Eden’s journeys in motherhood they never lose their personalities to it. The film does a fantastic job of balancing their stories and keeping them and their friendship at the forefront, with their parental, marital and career statuses supporting their identity as opposed to encompassing it.
Ilana Glazer plays Eden, and for fans of Broad City, the TV sitcom Glazer co-wrote and starred in, her familiar charm is written all over this film. It’s as if she plays herself, giving her work a naturalistic touch and making her ever so entertaining to watch. Eden’s character is a win for resilient, hyper-emotional, hyper-specific, awkward girls who only know straightforward questions as a conversational option and love to ramble. Every scene of her speaking her mind the only way she knows how connected with my own awkward, hyper-specific inner self. These moments are especially satisfying for lost young viewers who relate to her quirky disposition and see that a woman in her late 30s can have a job she likes and a sparkly personality that she hasn’t aged out of.
It is important to show adult female friendships outside of the common post-college, career and romantic-relationship scenarios. Babes consistently circles back to the struggles that come with maintaining fulfilling friendships when your friends are in different places in life, literally and emotionally. In a time when younger generations openly yearn for community, this film exemplifies the kind of healthy friendships needed to achieve that.
Babes invites us to think about how to balance friendships in our lives and assures us we are not alone when it comes to the many topics addressed in the film. Maintaining romantic chemistry after children, feeling “motherly enough” and loneliness are prevalent themes that viewers may relate to. The film also delicately touches on important yet underrepresented subjects like age regression, acknowledging your faults and showing up for your adult children, and the mistreatment of Black women and all pregnant people in medical spaces. Checking so many boxes in such little time, Babes offers something for everyone in the audience to connect with.
Grab a friend and come see Babes at The Independent Picture House!