“Spurs win!!! So that’ll free up some of my lost movie time. But I’m starting to take up yoga more regularly, so maybe I will be down some movie time afterall. I’m so close to finishing the movie wall initiative. By the end of the month for sure. Except first I gotta blog thru this past weekend’s double double, to re-appropriate a basketball term. Two on Fri and two on Sat. It all started with Jenny Slate in Obvious Child.
We all know that normally I wouldn’t be interested in a girly movie with a romantic subplot. Yet I was hearing very good things about Obvious Child, mostly that it was very real and down to earth. Not overly romannticized, and gave an honest look into the crap that sometimes happens. Slate is Donna. Donna works at a book store, but her real passion is stand up comedy. Your typical millennial trying to figure out her life and the world, when part of it comes crashing down. Her boyfriend breaks up with her, and her book store announces imminent closure. She hooks up with a seemingly nice guy she meets, and thinks it’s just a one time thing. Then she finds out she’s pregnant, and decides on an abortion. Seemingly nice guy shows up, actually wanting to date her for real. Does she tell him what happened? Ignore him? Date him but not say anything? And what exactly is she doing with her life in general.
Slate may be infamous for her short stint on SNL (and the f bomb heard round the world) but I prefer to remember her as the voice of Marcel the Shell with Shoes On. She was my main reason for wanting to watch this movie, and she was by far the best part of it. The girl is funny, and not afraid to be human. Everything that happens to her is fair game for a joke, the more irreverent the better. Still every emotional moment was poignant and thought provoking. And she attacked all those awkward human quirks we try to hide, maybe hitting a little too close to home at times, but in a way that made you root for her. My favorite scenes were the ones where she was doing stand up (particularly the opening scene). So unabashedly hilarious, I want to see her do more and more and more. Her BFF Nellie, played by Gaby Hoffman was a stellar wing woman. Kind of a missed opportunity that they didn’t play sisters, because that resemblance? Damn.
What I was hearing proved to be correct. The honesty behind it really did make it feel real in the way that few movies do, especially in this genre that I typically avoid for that very reason. I would not lump it into the chick flick or rom com category because I feel it’s more than that. Maybe it did have more of those kind of moments than I typically go for, but I’m still happy I saw this. I like being able to watch a movie where I can relate to the characters and I can believe what they’re going thru and find myself in it. The details of how her story plays out might be drastically different from mine, but that doesn’t give it any less of an impact.
Obvious Child – \m/ \m/ \m/ \n