Funny women salvage surrogate comedy
Kate Holbrook is a successful Philadelphia business executive. At age 37, she has it all — including a ticking biological clock. She’d like to have a baby (husband optional), but that doesn’t seem medically likely. Besides, she’s too busy and spoiled to go through the actual pains of pregnancy and birth.
So she finds an agency that will set her up with a surrogate. That’s the premise for “Baby Mama,” a modest comedy with two superb leads and not a whole lot else going for it.
Tina Fey, our current favorite female funny person, stars as Kate, and although Fey’s always a charmer (we loved her Weekend Updates on “Saturday Night Live”), she’s only half the reason to see the movie. The other half would be Amy Poehler (the current SNL Update anchor), who plays Angie Ostrowiski, a South Philly lowlife with neither scruples nor a sense of propriety. They’re an odd couple supreme, and whatever value this timid comedy offers comes through their interplay. Fortunately, there’s a lot of it.
Unfortunately, there are wasted distractions that don’t work quite as well. Sigourney Weaver, as the head of the agency that hooks them up, is a cold caricature, while Steve Martin, as a pony-tailed New Age phony, seems better suited to a skit than a full-length film.
Greg Kinnear plays a nice-guy part that offers him no challenge, and the script seems to wander off into we-ran-out-of-jokes territory before it should.
Still, Fey and Poehler are worth catching — but their goofy exchanges should work just as well on video.
PG-13; 96 minutes. C+
