Babes (film)

Babes
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Pamela Adlon
Written by	Ilana Glazer Josh Rabinowitz
Produced by	Ilana Glazer Josh Rabinowitz Susie Fox Ashley Fox Breean Pojunas
Starring	Ilana Glazer Michelle Buteau John Carroll Lynch Oliver Platt Sandra Bernhard Stephan James Hasan Minhaj
Cinematography	Jeffrey Kim
Edited by	Annie Eifrig Elizabeth Merrick
Music by	Jay Lifton Ryan Miller
Production companies	FilmNation Entertainment Range Media Partners Starrpix
Distributed by	Neon
Release dates	March 9, 2024 (2024-03-09) (SXSW) May 17, 2024 (2024-05-17) (United States)
Running time	109 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$227,799

Babes is a 2024 American comedy film directed by Pamela Adlon, written by Ilana Glazer and Josh Rabinowitz, and starring Glazer. It is Adlon's feature directorial debut.

The film was released in the United States on May 17, 2024.

Plot

Eden, an aggressively single woman, and her best friend Dawn are out on their annual Thanksgiving outing when Dawn goes into labor. After Dawn gives birth, Eden gets sushi for her and her husband Marty. When rejected by hospital staff, she takes the subway home where she meets a man named Claude, with whom she bonds to on a soulful level, over loss of parents and relationship issues. The two spend the night together and have sex.

One month later, after being ghosted by Claude, Eden invites Dawn, who’s been struggling with postpartum and breastfeeding, over to celebrate New Year’s Eve to relax. The two get drunk and high when Eden, in a lucid state, envisions herself pregnant and takes a multitude of pregnancy tests to which all come back positive. After confirming with an ultrasound, she sets off to locate Claude who she deducts is the father of the child. After asking mutual friends about Claude’s disappearance, they tell her that Claude died the day after Thanksgiving by choking on an almond. When she finds out the baby is 100% healthy, she resolves to keep the baby.

While Eden progresses in her pregnancy, Dawn and Marty struggle with their firstborns regression with potty-training, and finding daycare when they return to work. When the two are on a date night, Eden, who is babysitting, attempts to help their firstborn to want to stay grown by showing him a rated R movie.

At the next doctor’s appointment in which Eden finds out the sex of the baby, Dawn can’t make it due to work issues so she calls her estranged father to join instead. After the meeting the two reconcile and Eden sees Dawn’s location is at her house, to Eden’s dismay. When confronting Dawn, Dawn criticizes Eden for showing the rated R movie which gave their child satanic tendencies, scaring their caretaker, causing her to miss an important meeting and continues to tell Eden to find a doula, causing tension. Meanwhile, Eden approaches her due date and Dawn is continuously struggling with exhaustion and postpartum depression both at work and at home.

When recommended going on a “babymoon” to blow of steam and relax before the due date arrives, Dawn sees this as an opportunity to relax while Eden experiences discomfort throughout the trip. At dinner, Eden proposes the idea of moving in together, to which Dawn dismisses and the two argue. Eden calls Dawn out for leaving hours away to the Upper East Side and complains about her being left behind when they’re family, while Dawn explains she has a family of her own and how Eden didn’t think through the decision of having the baby.

Back home, tensions are high between the two and Dawn returns home to a pipe blockage explosion in their sewage system. Dawn and Marty both express their frustrations and complicated feelings being parents balancing work. Dawn then finds out she is set to fly out to San Francisco after being chosen to star in a dentist commercial. When calling Eden on the plane to let her know of her last-minute trip, Dawn realizes Eden has gone into labor. With her doula, Dragana, the two set off to the hospital when Dawn shows up, and the two apologize and reconcile. Eden then gives birth to a girl, whom she named Claudette.

After returning home, Eden and Claudette meet up with Dawn and her family to watch the movie that Claude starred in with a minor role the night they met. When returning home from the movie, Dawn reveals she’s moving back to Eden’s, 3 blocks down, and the two casually say “See you later.”

Cast

• Ilana Glazer as Eden
• Michelle Buteau as Dawn
• John Carroll Lynch
• Hasan Minhaj as Marty
• Stephan James as Claude
• Oliver Platt
• Kenny and Keith Lucas
• Sandra Bernhard

Production

In June 2022, it was announced that Adlon would make her feature directorial debut with an untitled pregnancy comedy film written by Glazer and Rabinowitz, and that Glazer and Buteau would star. The next month, it was announced that Lynch, Minhaj, James, Platt, the Lucas Brothers and Bernhard were cast in the film, which was then in production in New York City.

Release

In October 2023, it was announced that Neon acquired U.S. distribution rights to the film, which had officially been titled Babes. It had its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 9, 2024.

The film was released in the United States on May 17, 2024.

Reception

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 92% of 72 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 7.5/10. The website's consensus reads: "Offering an uproariously unvarnished look at motherhood and female friendships, Babes finds Pamela Adlon making an assured feature-length directorial debut with a big assist from stars Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 74 out of 100, based on 23 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.

External links

• Babes at IMDb