Obvious Child
Starring Jenny Slate, Jake Lacy
Directed by Gillian Robespierre
Being broken up with and being dumped are very different propositions. Should you find yourself abandoned and gobsmacked in a squalid comedy club bathroom while patrons evade you like a pathetic traffic pylon, odds are you’ve experienced the latter.
This is the indignity that befalls stand-up comic Donna Stern (Jenny Slate) in the opening minutes of writer-director Gillian Robespierre’s no roses/all thorns romantic comedy. After subsequently losing her long-endangered job at a bookshop, she hits rock bottom with some drunken rebound sex with Max (Jake Lacy), a sweet but square suit-in-training.
In keeping with her bad luck, she winds up pregnant. In breaking from most mainstream films, she immediately decides to have an abortion. With a few days to kill before her appointment, Donna circulates through her support network (including an in-form Richard Kind as her doting father and perpetual revelation Gaby Hoffmann as her best friend) while debating what exactly her obligations are to the one night stand who she keeps bumping into.
Wearing self-deprecation well, Slate seems tailor-made for a role that sees her airing her hang-ups in public. That said, Robespierre’s film effectively illustrates that blathering on about your insecurities isn’t the same as dealing with them. While not nearly as narratively or aesthetically accomplished, Obvious Child joins Frances Ha as an insightful study of how simply getting your shit together can sometimes represent an insurmountable challenge when you’re adrift in your mid-20s.
In capturing the tumultuous trials through which self-involvement cedes to self-discovery, Robespierre’s first feature proves its mettle and emerges as one of this year’s must-see debuts.
