Babies Review

For the elder millennial, the question of whether or not to have kids can loom large. I note that qualifier because, well, I’m not convinced previous generations thought about this as much as we supposedly do. Case in point: here’s writer-director Lauren Miller Rogen’s film Babies, which presses on what feels like a very important concern—though maybe only to her.

The “we” in this case does indeed include me (I’m just a few years younger than Miller; I’ll refer to her as that for clarity). And it is me (or we) for whom Babies is made, with Miller’s husband and home-grown millennial avatar Seth Rogen as the star alongside Anna Kendrick. The pair plays an affluent couple in Los Angeles (no stretch) who now find themselves surrounded by their friends with a variety of delightful children. Shaped mostly by Annie’s (Kendrick) inner monologue, the film buzzes through a narrative involving one couple’s divorce (Kate Berlant and Dan Stevens) and the impending birth of a third child for another (Issa Rae and Zach Cherry). There are other subplots in the film, but everything—yes, everything—revolves around the central question of whether Annie and Aaron (Rogen) will have kids. Fortunately for Miller, her cast is entertaining, and the stakes are generally low, so the inevitable answer never feels as significant as she makes it out to be. Only David Straithairn, as Annie’s dad, manages to insert drama connected to something more real. It’s a nice life, if you can get it.

Ultimately, much like the absence of an infant, Babies is weightless. It supplies a few laughs, makes the modest point Miller wants to make, and then floats away. As a thesis to test, there’s no doubt the film and its conclusion have meaning to her, but I’ll be honest: with no kids myself, even I can only care so much.