Obvious Child (2014)
Directed by Gillian Robespierre
An immature, newly unemployed comic must navigate the murky waters of adulthood after her fling with a graduate student results in an unplanned pregnancy.
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18 films that influenced Obvious Child
What critics say influenced Obvious Child
Obvious Child’s radicalism lies in its lack of radicalism: there is no grandstanding in the manner of If These Walls Could Talk, no naughty trolling à la Sarah Silverman.
You have only to rewatch Amy Heckerling’s Fast Times at Ridgemont High (written by a young Cameron Crowe) to realize that the insanely popular 1980s teen comedy featured an abortion subplot that barely made a ripple on the cultural front.
Other filmmakers and actors have been able to pull off this type of self-aware character in a far more accessible way--Jennifer Westfeldt of "Kissing Jessica Stein" for instance and even Dunham on "Girls"-- but not being able to feel any sort of connection to a character who appears in every single scene really holds "Obvious Child" back in a big way.
She wanted to go where the makers of Juno and Knocked Up would not, and viewers' reactions to the finished product may depend, to an extent, on how they feel about the breaking of that particular cinematic taboo.
2007 sees the release of three unexpected pregnancy comedies: Juno, Knocked Up, and Waitress, all of which end with a birth.
In the case of most films where an unwanted pregnancy is part of the storyline (Juno, What to Expect When You’re Expecting), the characters will usually ponder terminating the child but ultimately decide to keep the baby, ensuring a happy ending.
Even in the indie sector, a girl such as Juno will always have the baby in the end.
It’s another in a mainstream culture in which the procedure goes largely unmentioned — unless it’s heartwarmingly rejected as an option by the heroines of, say, Knocked Up and Juno — to put it on the big screen in all its blunt, ugly reality.
Its raw edges, grungy setting, and matter-of-fact tone about abortion mark it out from sunnier unplanned-preggo comedies like Juno or Knocked Up .
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She wanted to go where the makers of Juno and Knocked Up would not, and viewers' reactions to the finished product may depend, to an extent, on how they feel about the breaking of that particular cinematic taboo.
2007 sees the release of three unexpected pregnancy comedies: Juno, Knocked Up, and Waitress, all of which end with a birth.
Unlike in Judd Apatow's "Knocked Up," with a similar circumstance and where abortion is not even mentioned by name (except for the cowardly "schma-shmortion"), "Obvious Child" is honest.
Unabashedly presenting itself as a woman-centered New York response to the Los Angeles boys’ world storytelling of Knocked Up, Obvious Child stars Jenny Slate as an impecunious bookstore clerk by day and aspiring stand-up comedian by night.
It’s another in a mainstream culture in which the procedure goes largely unmentioned — unless it’s heartwarmingly rejected as an option by the heroines of, say, Knocked Up and Juno — to put it on the big screen in all its blunt, ugly reality.
True to her claim that she liked those mainstream rom coms, Robespierre has given her comedy the cheerful vulgarity of a Judd Apatow flick and the quirk-camouflaged romanticism of Juno or Waitress.
2007 sees the release of three unexpected pregnancy comedies: Juno, Knocked Up, and Waitress, all of which end with a birth.
The critical success of the standup dramedy in Louis CK’s innovative series Louie or Mike Birbiglia’s feature Sleepwalk with Me invites comedians to explore fictional storytelling beyond the Seinfeld model.
It would almost seem like writer/director Gillian Robespierre had made a female response to Mike Birbiglia's 2012 "Sleepwalk with Me" if it wasn't based on her 2009 short - a marginal standup comic faces relationship issues along with a medical concern as he/she hones his/her act.
Even “Knocked Up,” for all its flaws, didn’t skirt the issue so completely, and “Citizen Ruth” showed that a filmmaker of courage and vision could wring amusement from it, even if the laughter had a bitter edge.
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The wandering millennial emerges as a kind of stock character in movies like Garden State and Lost in Translation, and then in the work of Noah Baumbach and Lena Dunham (and a host of indie copycats).
When I say Obvious Child reminds me of Crimes and Misdemeanors I am not suggesting that Donna gets away with murder in the film.