Obvi­ous Child

A few years back, two of the biggest and most talked-about com­e­dy movies were Knocked Up and Juno. Both had the same essen­tial set-up: a young woman gets unex­pect­ed­ly preg­nant, caus­ing hilar­i­ty and romance to ensue. But many were puz­zled at best (and shocked at worst) that, in a 21^st cen­tu­ry film, the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a lead­ing char­ac­ter ter­mi­nat­ing a preg­nan­cy was essen­tial­ly glossed over. Judd Apa­tow, direc­tor of Knocked Up, defend­ed the deci­sion, say­ing that the film would be ​‘15 min­utes long’ if his lead did have an abor­tion. But along comes Obvi­ous Child, which seems to set out to lock horns with both that state­ment, and the two ear­li­er films.

One of the buzzi­er pre­mieres of this year’s Sun­dance Film Fes­ti­val, first-time fea­ture direc­tor Gillian Robespierre’s film, an expan­sion of her 2009 short of the same name, is not dis­sim­i­lar in its nar­ra­tive make-up to Juno and Knocked Up. Stand-up come­di­an Don­na (Jen­ny Slate) los­es her job and her boyfriend in a mat­ter of days and, drown­ing her sor­rows, falls into bed with hand­some stranger Max (Jake Lacy). A few weeks pass, and Don­na realis­es that she might not have been as care­ful as she thought, because it turns out that she’s very pregnant.

The paths diverge from there, though. Unlike her pre­de­ces­sors in this sub-genre, Slate’s char­ac­ter imme­di­ate­ly decides that she doesn’t want a child and arranges an abor­tion, though she’ll have to wait a few weeks for it. It’s a refresh­ing move, reflect­ing a deci­sion that many women Donna’s age would prob­a­bly take. And the film makes no bones about the oth­er women in her life, includ­ing her best friend, played by the sud­den­ly omnipresent Gaby Hoff­mann, and her moth­er, played by Pol­ly Drap­er, hav­ing had sim­i­lar experiences.

Not that the deci­sion is tak­en light­ly or treat­ed with glib aban­don: it’s unsen­ti­men­tal about the prospect, but there is real dra­mat­ic weight behind it too, much of it thanks to a per­for­mance of impres­sive range and inten­si­ty by Slate, an unfa­mil­iar name over here (she’s best known for a year-long run on Sat­ur­day Night Live), but one that’s unlike­ly to remain that way for long.

Beyond its big, but­ton-push­ing talk­ing point, the film isn’t espe­cial­ly ground­break­ing: it’s a Brook­lyn-by-way-of-Park-City Apa­towian roman­tic com­e­dy. But it’s a par­tic­u­lar­ly well-exe­cut­ed one, sharply script­ed, com­pas­sion­ate­ly played and with a drawn-from-life truth­ful­ness at its core. Scenes unfold organ­i­cal­ly and with­out much in the way of con­trivance, and the chem­istry between Slate and Lacy (famil­iar from the US The Office, and a win­ning and wel­come pres­ence here) is palpable.

Some may dis­miss the film as ​‘just’ a rom-com, but giv­en the dire state of the genre, it’s a great plea­sure to see one that’s as fun­ny, deep and well-formed as this one. But it’s the will­ing­ness to take on one of main­stream cinema’s last taboos that makes the film feel not just huge­ly enjoy­able, but also impor­tant to boot.