Babes revives the adult comedy
It recalls the raunchy movies of the early 2000s—even as it offers a fresh vision of what it means to grow up.
When No Hard Feelings (directed by Gene Stupnitsky) hit theaters in June 2023, critics hailed the return of the adult comedy, which had reigned supreme in American movie making in the early 2000s but since then had atrophied almost out of existence. As an erstwhile connoisseur of the genre, I was ready for a hilarious, mildly inappropriate romp with Jennifer Lawrence to kick off my summer. When I was disappointed—it was a solid C+ movie, but not a resounding success—I worried I had outgrown the genre. In fact it is simply recalibrating for our current moment—something I realized as Babes (directed by Pamela Adlon) launched my summer this year. And I am ready for more.
An adult comedy could just mean any R-rated movie played primarily for laughs, something a little too raunchy or profane for family movie night. When I think of the genre, though, I have in mind comedies about the particular absurdities and perils of adulting. Whether it is Vince Vaughn trying to recapture his lost youth in Old School or Steve Carell wrestling with his insecurities in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, the typical adult comedy has been one in which the trappings of heterosexual, middle-class adulthood—marriage, stable jobs, mortgages, kids—are both lampooned and eventually reaffirmed.
Babes already breaks new territory by making parenthood, rather than romance, the primary marker of adulthood. It is being marketed as a raunchy pregnancy comedy, and there are plenty of gags related to the embodied realities of pregnancy and birth. But its plotline and comedic beats are classic adult comedy. Eden (Ilana Glazer) and Dawn (Michelle Buteau) have been best friends for more than two decades, but their friendship is hitting its first major challenges now that Dawn has had her second kid and moved to a fancier part of Manhattan, leaving Eden behind teaching yoga in her fourth-floor walkup in Queens. When Eden accidentally gets pregnant during a one-night stand, she decides to join Dawn in the brave new land of parenthood.
