Friday, April 25, 2008

Baby Mama


I'm not exactly sure when "baby mama" replaced "mother" or "wife" as a term of endearment, but it is firmly established in the pop culture lexicon. And it was only a matter of time before a movie called Baby Mama was made.

Thank God it's a movie starring Tina Fey, the sexiest female comedian working these days, and one of the sharpest.

Here, Fey plays a hard-working career woman who at 37 realizes she really wants a baby, especially after she keeps bumping into one cute infant after another in her daily walk. But she has no man and can't adopt a child.

So she decides on the best next alternative: She hires a woman to be her surrogate. That woman, Angie, is played by Amy Poehler. Angie is the exact opposite of Fey's character, Kate. She's pretty much white trash, with a "common-law husband," and no manners.

Poehler and Fey have great chemistry, and the movie fleshes out the characters so they aren't simply stereotypes. We find depth in both of them.

Granted, the trajectory of the movie is rather predictable, especially after Kate bumps into Rob, played by Greg Kinnear, the owner of a fruit drink shop.

Steve Martin is wonderful as Kate's boss, a New Age CEO given to finding the essence of a shell and giving his employees the reward of staring into his eyes for five uninterrupted minutes.

The razor-sharp writing and the strong cast keep the movie on a steady pace to the inevitable end, thus giving some fresh meaning to "baby mama."