OBVIOUS CHILD (2014) ***
Saturday Night Live’s Jenny Slate stars as a foulmouthed stand-up comedienne. When her boyfriend breaks up with her, she hooks up with a random guy at a bar and winds up getting pregnant. She plans on getting an abortion and uses her predicament as fodder for her stand-up act.
Obvious Child carries on the long cinema tradition that if a character in a movie is a stand-up comedian, they usually aren’t very funny onstage. Slate’s act isn’t very good, but there’s a reason for it. For her character, stand-up is her catharsis. It’s the place she sorts out all the shit that’s going on in her life, usually for a puzzled audience. The stage is more of her personal confessional than a source of paying customers’ entertainment. Slate gives a strong and surprising performance and is quite funny in the other scenes in the film, especially when relating her problems to her best friend (Gaby Hoffmann).
Even though Obvious Child is about a comedian starring a comedian, it’s not exactly an out-and-out comedy. It’s more about how someone deals with an unexpected life event using humor as a coping mechanism. A lot of the movie is depressing and somewhat sad, and some of it is downright painful to watch (her final stage act in particular).
This is not a fun movie, but it is a well-acted, earnest, and honest one. Although I can’t really say I “enjoyed” watching it, I admired the honesty that went into it. There are no “Meet Cute” Rom-Com subplots or clichés. It pulls no punches and remains true to its characters. For that and that alone, it’s recommended.