Broad Comedy
by Flick Chick Vique Rojas
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Baby Mama nurses 4 Red Vines for showcasing funny females |
The guys have had them for years all the way from Laurel & Hardy, Hope & Crosby and Martin & Lewis, to present day jokesters Owen Wilson & Ben Stiller. But the concept of female ‘buddy’ movies seems to have eluded Hollywood from the very beginning. Well after seeing Baby Mama, all I can say is move over boys and make room for Tina Fey and Amy Poehler!
The movie’s plot of a successful business woman with raging baby fever (Fey) who hires a surrogate mother (Poehler) provides the perfect vehicle for the SNL ladies to reunite their remarkable chemistry. Fey plays the field from funny to sympathetic as the silliest straight woman to Poehler’s hilarious off the wall nut. The pair obviously had a ball and so will you watching them.
While tinsel town has churned out yet another belly buster about maternity, I found Baby Mama to be a thoughtful, mature comedy that manages to be outrageous without resorting to vulgarity that would in any way offend female sensibilities. Even when the plot travels down predictable twists and stereotypes, writer/director Michael McCullers’ dialogue and his amazing cast keep the laughs coming. In fact the stellar supporting cast provides laughs so fast and furious that no one is allowed to claim the title of top banana.
And what a cast it is! Steve Martin is the funniest he’s been in years as a new age business guru gone amok! Sigourney Weaver is positively radiant as a fertile senior who runs a surrogate mother business, while Greg Kinnear, Holland Taylor and Dax Shepard bring more than their share of laughs. I wasn’t familiar with Romany Malco but he’s on my radar now. As Oscar, the street wise doorman turned confidant, he more than holds his own with this cast of comic veterans.
Of course there are plot holes, credibility gaps and other minor flaws but they do little to detract from the pure fun of it all. And I for one rejoice in finally seeing a ‘chick’ buddy movie that shows women in all their hilarious complexity without being sappy and crappy. Fey and Poehler give hysterical new meaning to the term ‘broad comedy’!
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