Baby Mama
written and directed by Michael McCullers
starring Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Steve Martin, Holland Taylor, Greg Kinnear, Romany Malco, Sigourney Weaver, Maura Tierney.

Oh, the glorious gods bring us another pairing of perhaps the greatest female comedy duo of the modern era. This film manages to maintain its absurdist bent without succumbing to the tendency to get too sickly sweet in the process. Much of the humour is generated in quiet, seemingly insignificant moments where the actors play off of one another with impeccable timing. It gets mighty queer at times but doesn't dive off the plank into bona fide surrealism. It stays firmly in the reality it creates for itself and the characters maintain a firm grip to solid earth throughout. In the film, a wealthy businesswoman resorts to surrogate birthing in order to satisfy her biological urge to spawn.

Kate Holbrook is a successful executive at a major food company. She's well-liked, ambitious and utterly addicted to her work. However, a great big something is missing and she becomes obsessed with having a baby. She looks into it from every angle and finally hits upon the idea to let someone else carry it while she waits in agony for the process to culminate in something she can hold, burp, and watch mess itself. Angie Ostrowiski, a perky strangeling with all the affectation one expects from our trailer trash mamas, comes to her rescue and agrees to let a doctor facilitate the process that will result her being forced to squeeze out a real life turdling nine months hence. The rest of the film is a remarkably sweet investigation into the nature of unexpected friendship and the ways that different value systems can agreeably collide.

The film fills its narrative with genuinely funny bits that come mostly from character quirks and quiet moments that don't bash the audience over the head. This is a film that relies on subtlety to win its audience over. Case in point is the ridiculous characterization of a would-be guru named Barry played by Steve Martin. Just looking at him with his wonky pony tail and tremendous affected mannerisms is enough reason to see this film. Martin sells Barry's hands on approach to self-love ("I'm going to reward you with five minutes of direct eye contact"). He's creepy and engaging and flipping mad all at the same time. It's one of the funniest things Martin has done is a very long time and it's a remarkable performance. Equally strange is Chafnee

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