Special Movie Review - Baby Mama

Baby Mama


As SNL stars' movies go, there have always been hits and misses. The early greats like Chevy Chase, Steve Martin, and Bill Murray have gone on to have pretty illustrious careers in full length films. But others, more from the newer batch of alums - including Tim Meadows and Chris Kattan - have failed to really find a niche; of course, they always succeed in some ways with their films (Meadows with Mean Girls and his latest stint in The Bill Engvall Show), but the films that they have starred in as the lead have mostly tanked. Yet Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, Fey having already left SNL and Poehler still appearing in the line-up, set out to team up and provide another comedic success with their cooperative vehicle. Fey's spirits must have already been rising with her award-winning TV show 30 Rock, but the smart comedy Baby Mama was still a risky move considering the comedy releases of late - would the public stomach another potential flop of stupid humor?


I guess that question is rendered moot, though, because Baby Mama is a smart and topical movie, exploring the horrors (or pleasures, one could argue) of surrogate mothership. Fey plays Kate Holbrook, businesswoman working for a prominent organic food company and woman who is missing that little child in life, but who also has very little chance at getting pregnant. Instead, Kate turns to surrogacy, an expensive operation which promises to give Kate the baby that she always wanted but also has its risks in finding the right mother to birth the child. Kate does interviews and finally settles on Angie (played by Poehler), who has been looking to make a little money by getting preggers for needy mothers. It seems like a charitable business, right? Maybe not, as each donor receives $10,000 from the soon-to-be mother, and Angie is looking to scam off of her customer, pretending to be pregnant and then running off with her boyfriend and the money.


As Kate and Angie progress in the "pregnancy," Kate finds out that Angie isn't the suitor that she thought she was in the first place. Angie eats mostly junk food, smokes, dies her hair, and pretty much everything else that is harmful to a growing child. Kate weens her off of the dangerous chemicals, instead taking matters into her own hands to ensure that the child grows up as healthy as possible. But what Kate doesn't know is that Angie has not actually gotten pregnant with Kate's baby, and has been instead faking it. Although when Kate and Angie bond after all the time spent caring for the baby, Angie begins to feel guilty that she is cheating Kate out of her money and decides to tell her. All hell breaks loose as Kate falls for a guy who works at a smoothie joint, Rob (Greg Kinnear), and he finds out that she is trying for a surrogate baby, which he disagrees with - oh yeah, and then Angie drops a bomb that she's not pregnant with Kate's baby but truly pregnant with her boyfriend's kid. The fit hits the shan, as my history teacher always used to say.


Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are just the team that I thought they would be - from SNL's Weekend Update to their cooperation on the big screen, their personalities and character portrayals just seem to mesh. Poehler steals the show here, with her finnicky attitude and trailer-trash persona. She has the ability to be the villain, as much as her embezzlement can be called a truly villainous scheme, and yet still remain likable to the extent where we can understand her dilemma. Poehler brings out the stereotypical low-income, jobless woman, yet also provides a greater moral side to Angie - almost as if she is a battered woman trying to break free of her abusive boyfriend, struggling with the pros and cons of each choice.

That's not to say that Fey fails by any stretch of the imagination. It is just the nature of her role - the straight, level-headed, more mature woman - that puts her character on the backburner and highlights the quirkiness of Angie. Kate is the more normal person, making her sort of a plain jane. Of course, she's funny, especially with her comments on Angie's health and hygiene, but Angie is the more entertaining of the two.


The humor is not necessarily laugh-out-loud funny, yet some parts do require bits of physical comedy to grab laughs from the audience. What's more funny are the interactions between characters, especially scenes with guest star Steve Martin as a naturalist hippie. Director and writer Michael McCullers has found the point where smart, cultural satire does not need dirty jokes or slapstick humor to succeed, but the mocking of our society works just fine as fuel for comedy.

While some might find the love story between Fey and Kinnear a bit foreseeable, I think it works because of the fact that Kinnear's character seems heartfelt, honest, and real, and not some hunky android-like human replica, as some rom-coms are apt to use. Instead, Fey and Kinnear are two normal - and more importantly, alike - individuals who find each other when they need each other. They both have and want kids, and their attraction works. They feel right for each other.


With a host of guest appearances, a great cast, likable and relatable characters, and successful humor and satire, Baby Mama is a comedy delving into some new territory in a genre ripe with buddy films and slapstick or gross-out humor. The team-up of Poehler and Fey is again successful, hearkening back to their SNL days but remaining distinctly seperate. And the most important part is that the film doesn't feel like an overly long SNL skit, but an entity broken away from that late-night mold and standing on its own two feet.

Baby Mama on Rotten Tomatoes