Review: 'Babes' is a raunchy, down-and-dirty comedy about pregnancy, with a sweet, warmly sentimental center

As a male human, I recognize that the creators of “Babes” — a raunch-filled comedy about pregnancy, impending motherhood and female friendship — were not thinking of me as the target demographic.

But I am happy to report that I laughed a lot, and got emotional a few times, even though some of the jokes and references and heart-tugging beats are beyond my field of experience — because the movie’s stars, Ilana Glazer and Michelle Buteau, are too funny and too wonderful not to laugh with and fall for.

Glazer’s Eden and Buteau’s Dawn have been best friends since childhood, growing up in New York and becoming as close as sisters. Their lives are not in the same place, though. When the movie begins, Dawn, a dentist, is about to go into labor with her second child with her loving and nerdy husband, Marty (Hasan Minhaj), living on the Upper East Side. Eden is a single woman, a yoga instructor who teaches in her fourth-floor walkup Brooklyn studio, which is also her apartment. 

The two meet for their annual Thanksgiving morning movie date, but Dawn notices that her theater seat is wet. So is the next one. And the next one. Dawn and Eden quickly realize that Dawn is going into labor. So they hurry to a restaurant, so Dawn can get all the good food she won’t be able to have in the hospital, and then go to the hospital to have the baby.

On the train back to Brooklyn, Eden starts a conversation with a guy in a tuxedo, Claude (Stephan James), who’s making the same transfers as she is. As they talk, they discover they have so many other things in common that it’s only natural that they’d end up back at his place and, eventually, in bed together.

You can guess what happens next: After getting ghosted by Claude, Eden takes a pregnancy test — well, 30 actually, since she’s on ‘shrooms at the time — and discovers she’s pregnant. What’s more, she decides she’s going to have the baby, an announcement that Dawn doesn’t greet with all the enthusiasm a supportive best friend is supposed to muster. Dawn knows what’s coming, and isn’t sure Eden is emotionally ready for motherhood.

The script, by Glazer and Josh Rabinowitz (who has a funny cameo as a nervous waiter), digs deep into the gross details of pregnancy and childbirth, finding humor in everything from the length of the amniocentesis needle to the different… er, fluids that come out of a woman at different stages of the gestational process. Women, particularly women who have been through it, will likely laugh and nod in sympathy — at, for example, the scene where Dawn and Eden do to Dawn’s breast pump what the guys in “Office Space” did to a printer. Men, at the very least, will get a long-delayed education.

“Babes” is the directing debut of Pamela Adlon, but that doesn’t mean she’s an untrained rookie. Adlon directed 44 of the 52 episodes of her acclaimed series “Better Things,” in which she played an actress who’s also a single mom of three teen daughters. Here, Adlon displays a very dry wit and a well-tuned sense of the absurdities women endure to be mothers, lovers and friends.

Glazer gets massive amounts of credit for writing herself a wonderful role, and for perfectly embodying Eden’s fumbling journey toward maturity. Bureau is equally delightful, as she conveys the warmth and exasperation of being Eden’s best friend as well as the bone-deep exhaustion of being a supermom. Together, they make “Babes” a buddy-comedy that’s scathingly funny and truly heartfelt.

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‘Babes’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, May 24, in theaters everywhere. Rated R for sexual material, language throughout, and some drug use. Running time: 104 minutes.