‘Babies’ Review: Anna Kendrick Is a Comic Dynamo Alongside Seth Rogen in a Sparkling Portrait of a Couple Weighing the Pros and Cons of Parenthood

To be or not to be … parents. That is the thorny question raised in Lauren Miller Rogen’s Babies, an astute charmer about a happy, supportive Los Angeles couple (Anna Kendrick and Seth Rogen) who, after 17 years of togetherness, begin wondering if they might be missing a bouncing bundle of something in their lives.

Maybe it was all the times they heard friends with kids tell them, “You guys would be such great parents,” but Annie and Aaron suddenly find themselves addressing a topic they hadn’t really ever officially signed off on in the past.

Babies

The Bottom Line A genuine crowd-tickler.

Venue: Toronto International Film Festival (Gala Presentations)
Cast: Anna Kendrick, Seth Rogen, Issa Rae, Dan Stevens, Kate Berlant, Zach Cherry, Ed Helms, Ashley Park, Sharon Stone, David Strathairn
Director-screenwriter: Lauren Miller Rogen
1 hour 37 minutes

Drawing from aspects of her own life, Miller, in her second directorial effort following 2018’s Like Father, taps into a reservoir of considerable relevance here, finding plenty of fertile comic ground in the subject matter but never at the expense of weightier questions surrounding life choices, human existence and the uncertain state of society.

With an especially terrific Kendrick serving as Miller’s onscreen surrogate, Babies should have no problem finding an adoring audience when it lands in theaters via Roadside Attractions and Vertical sometime next year.

The consideration first presents itself at a Fourth of July pool party where Annie (Kendrick) and Aaron (Rogen) feel outnumbered by all the family units surrounding them. That launches Annie into the first in a series of inner monologues, as she acerbically takes stock of the pros and cons of parenthood based on the disparate sample set on display.

On the way home, they begin to wonder if their cozy marriage might be missing out on an upgrade. Annie’s friend and business partner Becky (Issa Rae) and her husband Ethan (Zach Cherry) are expecting their third child while their firstborn has officially entered into the terrible teens. Then there’s Annie’s realtor friend Eliza (Kate Berlant), who has just broken up with her cheating husband Luke (Dan Stevens) and is staying at Annie and Aaron’s home with her young daughter Eve (played by Delaney and Parker Evans) until she can sort things out. Annie and Aaron are fine with that arrangement, figuring it would make for a good test drive on the child-rearing front. After all, Eve is cute and well-behaved, although toilet training has turned into a stubborn battle of wills resulting in chronic constipation. When Aaron makes a fart joke, Eliza cautions him to “be very careful with attaching shame to her body.”

Meanwhile, Annie also has her own parents to worry about, in particular an unresponsive mother in the later stages of Alzheimer’s and a lonely dad (David Strathairn) whom she encourages to join a dating site. Despite his initial protestations, he ultimately relents and ends up going out for dinner with the lively, recently widowed Susan (Sharon Stone). The results are less than promising.

That heartbreaking situation has Annie wondering if what happened to her mother could happen to her one day — and if that’s something she would want a child of her own to have to witness.

Miller Rogen does a lovely job in balancing the lighter and heavier aspects of Babies. Her knowing script navigates big-picture life lessons and poop jokes with equal finesse — the latter memorably manifested in the middle of a Los Angeles County Museum of Art installation that provides one of the film’s heartiest laughs.

Expertly mining the motherlode with remarkable aplomb, Kendrick richly conveys every conflicting aspect of Annie’s journey of self-discovery, reaching a tipping point at Becky’s baby shower, where, after finding the non-non-alcoholic Champagne, she memorably calls out the pretentiousness of some of the assembled moms. It’s a beautifully rounded performance that effectively overcomes the diminishing comic returns of one too many inner monologues.

Sweetening the deal is a never better Rogen, with whom she shares a warm, easy chemistry, and an equally effective supporting cast highlighted by Berlant’s comically neurotic Eliza and an affectingly sympathetic turn by the always reliable Strathairn.