Ninjababy | Little White Lies

Nin­jaba­by

09 Sep 2021 / Released: 10 Sep 2021

Simple cartoon figure drawing next to young woman reading book on couch.
Simple cartoon figure drawing next to young woman reading book on couch.
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Anticipation.

A new iteration of comedy centred on unplanned pregnancy.

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Enjoyment.

Kristine Kujath Thorp delivers a playful performance in a film that doesn’t skimp on the big questions of life.

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In Retrospect.

A story of a woman’s commitment to her needs and desires that allows itself to have fun.

An ama­teur car­toon­ist meets her unborn child in Nor­we­gian writer/​director Yngvild Sve Flikke’s irrev­er­ent comedy.

In 2007, Jason Reitman’s Juno became an instant cult clas­sic, Elliot Page’s note-per­fect per­for­mance and screen­writer Dia­blo Cody’s iron­ic dark humour cre­at­ing a com­fort com­e­dy about unwant­ed teen preg­nan­cy that was bold enough not to rel­e­gate its pol­i­tics to the sidelines.

The lack of desire to have a child is the motor for Nor­we­gian writer/​director Yngvild Sve Flikke’s Nin­jaba­by, which has a sim­i­lar flavour of edgy com­e­dy. Despite its obvi­ous sim­i­lar­i­ties to Juno, how­ev­er, this film offers a refresh­ing inter­pre­ta­tion of a famil­iar premise, with a new kind of empa­thy for female bod­i­ly autonomy.

Rake (Kris­tine Kujath Thorp) is a graph­ic design stu­dent in her mid-twen­ties who shares a flat with best friend Ingrid (Tora Chris­tine Diet­rich­son). She cracks jokes at inap­pro­pri­ate times, is gen­er­al­ly irrev­er­ent, and doesn’t let the brevi­ty of her youth go to waste, par­tak­ing in reg­u­lar par­ty-going and all of the illic­it sub­stances that such an act may entail.

All of this is imme­di­ate­ly appar­ent because the film has a unique nar­ra­tion style, one that allows the audi­ence to access Rakel’s inner­most thoughts via over­laid ani­ma­tion intend­ed to emu­late the notes and sketch­es from the career as a com­ic artist she would like to have some­day. One sketch sequence reads, 5 THINGS RAKEL WANTS TO BE. ASTRO­NAUT. BEER TASTER. GLO­BE­TROT­TER. FOR­EST RANGER. COM­IC ARTIST,’ as she awaits the result of a preg­nan­cy test.

When Rakel sub­se­quent­ly tries to exer­cise her right to a legal abor­tion, she is faced with her worst case sce­nario: She isn’t just a few months along, she’s at the end of her sec­ond term and thus can­not ter­mi­nate the preg­nan­cy. This sur­pris­ing devel­op­ment not only explains the film’s title, it ush­ers in the arrival of the Nin­jaba­by him­self, an ani­mat­ed man­i­fes­ta­tion of the foe­tus inside Rakel’s womb voiced by Her­man Tømmeraas.

The title char­ac­ter and the ubiq­ui­tous­ness of this extra lay­er of ani­ma­tion, in an oth­er­wise live-action film, are taste­ful addi­tions that cre­ate a con­vivial mood with­out under­min­ing the seri­ous­ness of the sub­ject mat­ter. The film thus fol­lows Rakel as she nav­i­gates her own per­son­al rock bot­tom, and it does so grace­ful­ly. The main­tained focus on Rakel’s auton­o­my is what makes the film so inter­est­ing, and there is no com­pro­mise on Flikke’s com­mit­ment to her protagonist’s desires.

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