Baby Mama charmed audiences in the spring when Tina Fey brought the comedy about a woman and her mismatched surrogate to theaters. Baby Mama is on DVD and it is on the small screen that Fey’s funny film works on so many levels.
Making babies
The story concerns Kate, a single vice president of a company from Philadelphia, his hit her late 30s and her clock is ticking. The only problem is, there was never time for a boyfriend of any kind on the way up the corporate ladder.
When she discovers she has a ‘t-shaped’ uterus (Fey uses this line hysterically throughout), Kate finds Sigourney Weaver’s surrogate company and Amy Poehler’s Angie.
Comic chemistry
Poehler and Fey together is always a joy. In Baby Mama, the pair bring their comic chemistry to new heights.
Although the film has been advertised as a work with ‘non-stop laughs,’ like The Birdcage before, I would caution going into a viewing expecting to fall out of your chair in guffaws.
Handled with care
Baby Mama is hysterical, but at its best it is touching in how it handles the issues of infertility that millions of women grapple with daily. Hollywood ending or not, the lives of Kate and Angie provide a terrific bookend for all the possibilities for women in the new millennium.
From Poehler’s character and her self-esteem lacking, and then discovering, misfit to Fey’s driven corporate champion, women from all walks of life can identify with the possibilities with this story. It is universal.
The extras are nod to Fey’s Saturday Night Live past. A stellar documentary, Saturday Night Live: Legacy of Laughter, is worth the price of the DVD alone. An interesting alternative ending is included as well as deleted scenes and an entertaining ‘making of’ documentary.
Recent film features
Debra Messing and Jada Pinkett-Smith dish on The Women
Meg Ryan and Annette Bening, the SheKnows interview
Tommy Lee Jones sues Paramount Pictures
Leave a Comment