'Babes' Is a Raunchy, Sweet Platonic Love Story

The BFF/motherhood comedy stars Ilana Glazer from 'Broad City' and stand-up comedian Michelle Buteau.

I’m tempted to classify Babes as a romantic comedy, although that’s not entirely accurate. Not that the movie lacks romance. Or comedy (it’s hilarious). But it touches on a few different kinds of affection, and is, above all else, a platonic love story between two BFFs.

That would be Eden (Ilana Glazer, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Josh Rabinowitz), a single, freewheeling yoga instructor, and Dawn (Michelle Buteau), a married dentist. These PLPs (platonic life partners) have known each other since they were kids; we first meet them fulfilling a decades-old tradition of seeing a movie together every Thanksgiving morning. They’re so close that Eden is in the delivery room when Dawn gives birth to her second child; they’re so close that Dawn’s husband, Marty (Hasan Minhaj), professes to be jealous of their bond; they’re so close that they can have an entire conversation solely using the word “bitch.”

It’s not long after the aforementioned birth that Eden has a meet-cute with an actor named Claude (Stephan James), with whom she bonds over their mutual love of Street Fighter and lack of parents (his are dead, as is her mother; her father, played briefly by the reliably-excellent Oliver Platt, is a self-admitted lousy dad). That results in a one-night stand, and that results in Eden getting pregnant. Eden decides to keep the baby, relying on Dawn to be by her side the entire time; but as Dawn becomes increasingly stressed with being a working mother of two young children, that proves to be difficult, leading to conflict between the besties.

Babes was directed by Pamela Adlon, who will always be Dolores from Grease 2 to me, but is probably most recognizable from TV shows like Louie and Better Things (she’s also the voice of Bobby on King of the Hill). As a director, Adlon’s style is unfussy and unobtrusive, which is certainly fitting; the joys of Babes are its honest, uproarious depictions of womanhood and its incredible cast, not its striking compositions or inventive editing.

That cast also includes small roles played by Sandra Bernhard and The Lucas Brothers, plus an always-welcome appearance by American goddamn treasure John Carroll Lynch as the ladies’ OB/GYN (Lynch is saddled with one of the movie’s few unfunny bits - a sitcomish running gag about his thinning hair - but he’s such a pro he makes it work). Naturally, though, the bright shining stars are Glazer and Buteau.

Glazer rose to fame as the co-star and co-creator of the hilarious Comedy Central series Broad City, and Eden is very much in the vein of the character she played on that show (who was also named Ilana). I’m much more familiar with Buteau from her spit-take-worthy work as a stand-up comedian than her work as a thespian, however, and was deeply impressed by her acting chops. Dawn goes through a lot of emotions in this movie (no one ever says she has postpartum depression, but it certainly seems that way) and Buteau, who has been very open about her personal struggles with motherhood and marriage, completely nails them all.

Tonally, Babes is a little less broad than Bridesmaids (another extremely droll film about a lifelong female friendship tested by adulthood), but a little more broad than a Nicole Holofcener movie like You Hurt My Feelings or Enough Said. There’s been some pre-release hype about the movie being a “girls can be gross too”-style romp, like last year’s Joy Ride, and while there is a lot of frank discussion about bodily fluids and the female anatomy, it’s not all that graphic in a literal sense. There are birth scenes in Knocked Up and April’s The First Omen that are more explicit than anything here. Babes isn’t trying to shock anyone into laughter - it’s just trying to be honest.

Indeed, the movie has a lot of earnest, sometimes even moving things to say -about friendship and what constitutes family, about motherhood, about marriage, and about being the last of your single friends. It doesn’t probe any of those subjects too deeply, which is probably appropriate given that it’s a comedy, but also sometimes feels like they just couldn’t quite figure out how to squeeze satisfying resolutions into the narrative.

But that is a very minor complaint. Babes is terrific: funny and vulnerable and all things we say we want from comedies but seem to rarely get these days. Make a date to see it with your PLP ASAP.