SHIFTER’s Chris Harrison calls Lauren Miller Rogen’s latest “one of the year’s funniest comedies” in his Babies film review.
“[Babies] is a mature take on one of the biggest decisions couples face, wrapped in one of the year’s funniest comedies.” – Chris Harrison
Babies begins with Aaron (Seth Rogen) and Annie (Anna Kendrick), the lone childless duo in their group of couple friends, suddenly tasked with taking in a friend and her young daughter after she splits with her husband and prepares for a potentially messy divorce. They’ve reached the age where the question of whether or not they’ll have children is virtually inescapable in social settings and in their surprise roommate, they see an opportunity to explore whether or not parenthood is something they truly want to add to their happy marriage.
It’s a twist on a familiar setup. Aaron and Annie are finding that their friends have less and less time for them because of the demands of raising children, and are being told at every turn that something is missing from their lives. People with kids are always telling them it’s the best decision they’ve ever made. But in Babies, directed by Lauren Miller Rogen and starring Seth Rogen, a couple that famously does not want to have kids, the couple at the center of the movie has goals and priorities outside of baby fever, and the characters are all the richer for it.
Rogen, fresh off of the excellent The Invite, has quietly become one of the best romcom actors of this era, and he exudes warmth in this role, especially when he shares the screen with the tiny human suddenly thrust into Aaron’s life.
But Anna Kendrick steals the show here. Annie isn’t just the emotional core of the film, grappling with her and her fathers’ feelings as her mother’s dementia worsens; she’s also one of its funniest characters, not only when bouncing off Aaron or her wild soon-to-be divorced friend Eliza (Kate Berlant), but even when she’s narrating her scenes with a tech bro investor as she tries to get her dream art studio off the ground. It’s one of her finest performances.
Annie and Aaron’s sidequests are a joy to watch, especially their interactions with their friends’ kids as they ruminate over their decision (Anne’s conversation at a farmer’s market with a woman who thought her friends’ daughter was her own got big laughs in the theater).
Annie’s internal monologue at the end is a great encapsulation of the film’s ethos. Though Babies rejects the notion that the couple have to have kids to find fulfillment in their marriage, they’re not immune to the appeal of it either. They see, through their friends, and through strangers, the beauty and the struggle of parenthood, and both decisions are portrayed as equally valid, for the right person. It’s a mature take on one of the biggest decisions couples face, wrapped in one of the year’s funniest comedies.
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