But I felt like the movie had a really hard time toggling between its comedic set pieces and its more dramatic arcs to the point where it almost felt like it would have been a better collection of skits than a real movie altogether.

Yeah. That's a very good point. And I'm curious, Jacey, how about you? What you were saying, yes. So I feel like you were on this similar vibe. You're

great. No, I do agree. I thought that this movie did comedy really, really well. In a lot of ways, I expected it to be kind of a spiritual successor to Broad City, which is the show that Elana Glaser did on Comedy Central. I was a web series and eventually got picked up. And in a lot of ways, it was. I mean, you have Elana and Insert Best Friend. They're an inseparable duo living in New York, telling Wuranchi jokes that are also realistic, navigating life in friendships. It's kind of a recipe for success, I think. And I will say that the friendship was believable. I thought that their chemistry was great. It's not the same as the dynamic between Elana and her Broad City co-star, Abby Jacobson. But the chemistry was very much there. But I would say it's more of a more of a spiritual cousin to Broad City than a spiritual successor. Like they are more mature. Their lives are more established. Their problems are more mature. Elana's Meatcute, What's Define James is it's a lot more mature. They have sex at the end. And it's in Broad City that would have been more of a punch line. And in Babes, it's a punctuation to the flirtatious relationship that they shared. I agree that the tension in this movie was just sorely lacking for me. It felt like they were trying to give it depth. And I was just like, eh, I don't necessarily need this particular kind of depth. The highlight is always going to be Elana, right, to me. Give me Elana Glaser, writing Elana Glaser all day, every day, and twice on Sundays. Like she nails the character that she is. And I think by and large, the first half of the movie, the first like 40 minutes or so of the movie really capitalizes on what made Broad City good. And for that, I love the movie, but it is imperfect to be sure. Yeah.

I have to out myself as like not a huge Broad City fan. And no. The weird thing about it is that like I found it funny, but I didn't find it funny enough to continue watching it. And I think I watched the first season. And the thing is, is I liked both of those women. I thought they were great, but something about it just didn't click for me. I wasn't obsessed with it in the same way that a lot of people, especially, I was living in New York at the time when this came out. And I was also like in my twenties were around the same age. So like it should have been my catnip, but I think I appreciated it more than I found it hilarious. Even though Pamela Adlon didn't, she's not credited as a screenwriter, I do think her touch is here. And better things is one of my favorite shows of the last like 10, 15 years. I think it's just like, even for someone like myself who is not a mother and has no intentions of parenthood, I found so much to love and appreciate about the way that show really tapped into the difficulties of parenthood and, but also the joys of it. And I think I can see her touch in this film in ways that I really kind of loved, especially the moment that the Alana Glazer character here holds her baby for the first time. And I was just like, oh, this feels like straight out of better things. And I really liked it. You know, this does feel a little loosey goosey in a way that I don't think it serves the film, but I also see it's trying to do, it's definitely trying to give you this old school like New York City movie vibe, like very sort of, in fact, Nora Efron out one point is sort of like name checked. But you know, you have like the jazzy piano song, but while that's happening, you've got Michelle Bito crawling on all floors going through like in the hospital. It is the antithesis of like, oh, my God, you're gonna have to baby and everything's going really, really fast. Like that whole montage is like over the credit sequence where it's like, it starts in a restaurant and then she's in the hospital and

then she's slowly crawling. And you could actually see that the floor was dirty. Oh, my God. And then we did a really good job.

And that was a place where the direction really joined because you could see like, that is nasty. Yeah. You know, like where normally it would have been like a beautiful whatever softly lit. It wasn't. It was

like, ah, yes, they did a really good job. I felt like showing some of the grittiness while still celebrating New York. Yes. And it's slow. I think that's the best part about it is that it's slow and deliberate because like, you know, in another thing, it would be frenetic and it would be like, you know, quick cuts going from here to there. But this was like, no man, this is a process. You are going through it. You're going from one thing to the next and you feel every bit of it. And I'm like, yeah, that seems like that's more

true. Yeah. Yeah. And I just, I love that. And I want to talk a little bit more actually about the grittiness, grossness of it because, you know, Christina, you are a parent. And I'm sure like, for me, I was kind of struck by how kind of icky and unafraid to be icky this week. Yeah.

I mean, I thought the scene

where Michelle's Dawn character is imagining her breast milk sprouting out was the funniest thing I have ever seen. Like it was gross and hilarious and felt true. And it was just so, so perfect. And they have so many different lines where it's about like discharge or like, just stuff

you never hear about. It's still addressing. Yeah.

Yeah. And it was so tackling. I really appreciated how they did a body humor. And I thought it was interesting from Alana Glaser because she had done false positive where she did body horror of motherhood. Yeah. And so it was interesting to see kind of the evolution here. Now she's a little further on her journey to be able to like laugh at the grossness and the silliness and the weirdness and the, also the silence around it. Right. Like those early scenes where she's like looking up her friends skirt and giving them updates. It was like, it was comical.

Yeah. have to agree with that. This movie is really rooted in the reality of childbirth, and that's where the comedy of this movie is rooted. It's rooted in managing friendships and family and the messiness of all of those things, right? Of childbirth and of relationships. I will confirm what you probably suspected, which is that I have not to date given birth. It's an experience. I don't want to speak out of turn. I don't expect I will personally ever give birth, but I think that the comedy did well to stay away from the tired trope of the joke is men don't understand lady parts. Like that's not what this would be in. And if anything, the whole premise of it is that the human body is weird and messy and does really strange and magnificent things, and also our sex education in our entire society is kind of lacking. But this movie really found the funny in prenatal care in a smart way. And I think that the jokes in this movie normalize childbirth and find the more human joke beneath it, and the joke beneath all the messiness that's surrounding it.

Hasn't Minaj plays Don Michelle Buteau's character, her husband. And like you said, Jayce, it could have been very easy for him to be like, who do I do? But he is actually the one who in many scenes is dealing with the messy. There's a whole thing about poop and pipes. And like he's the one who has to deal with it first. And just the way that he's a supportive husband, but also, you know, there's no sort

of sense of emasculating it. It just really works. No, as a matter of fact, if anything, there were points where he was like more attentive and more, you know, in tune with what Don needed, then even Don wants herself.

Exactly. And so I'm curious what you thought about sort of this movie has sort of like dueling concerns, right? It's like you have the eating character who's becoming a mother for the first time, and like is basically her only community really is Don. And so she's putting all of her energy into her. But then you have Don, who, and to me, this was the even less trodden path, like that we've seen in filming TV when it comes to not the first kid, but having a second kid, and how the expectations of like you think it might be easier because you've already gone through before. But like their older kid is like going through his own, he's basically like reverting back to being a toddler because he doesn't want the new kid there. There's one moment that I cackled that loud where Michelle Piccho comes into the room and she's like, so you want to help Mommy clean up? And he has a pacifier in his mouth and he looks at her up and down like, what are you talking about? Like he doesn't even say anything. He's just like, no, I just love those little moments. And you know, how did that play for you? Just seeing sort of like a different side of parenthood that wasn't just about like first time parenthood, which is, I think is what we usually

get to see. I felt

like that was very smart. And

I also felt like they did a good job of showing

how hard it is to have

little kids,

even when you have two loving, competent parents. We never get that narrative. Right? Like it's usually maybe you have one good parent, maybe. Right? And here you had two and they're still like, they can't make it work, right? It's still just really, really hard and not that it's not beautiful and not that it's not hilarious. But I felt like they really captured some of the hardness of it. Although I felt like they let the plot down a little bit.

There's a whole subplot of

Eden's character needing Don more than she's willing to give, but you don't actually really ever see that until they're having a confrontation about it. And so I felt like there was some missing elements in there. But overall, portrayal of just like how hard it is and how exhausted you get and how guilty you feel about that. And then also, Don, it seems like she goes through a light depression. They don't name it as such, but it definitely feels that way. And you see her looking disconnected and sad. I thought that the portrayal of that was really beautiful and strong. And one of the dramatic marks

that the film hit where it missed some of the other ones. I agree that those moments of Don's kind of her going to the depths and having like a bit of a depression. I thought that that was really good. But the chemistry of the tension, for whatever reason, it broke down all the good will that I felt like they built in the first 40 minutes or so. They could have leaned into that trope of where the drama is that one of them thinks that the other one isn't going to be as good a parent. And again, I'm glad that they didn't do that. But the thing is that these two main characters were so easy going with each other that I was just like, nah, I don't believe that this is the problem that they would have because their relationship was so well connected. I do think that kind of what you were saying before, as far as the breaking down of this myth, because I want to say I totally bought in to the idea that your second child is easier. Like, I don't have any children myself now. But like, I want to, I want to have kids one day, I would like to have more than one. And I totally thought like, okay, you learn all your things with the first one. And the second one, you just kind of like follow the blueprint that you that you tried before. And this was like, nah, even if you're like a really smart, super capable, super loving, super plugged in parent, you're not going to have that experience. And I'm like, oh, okay, I guess it's going to be different than that. Yeah, it's breaking down my myths. Oh,

look at that.