Obvious Child (2014)

Absolutely Fantastic

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

Perfection. From the minute I started watching this film I was locked in. Fully attentive. Beautifully written and acted out. 10/10.

I'm not even sure why I watched this, I don't even think I read a description or watched a trailer, but it was actually more entertaining than I thought it would be.When I first saw Jenny Slate, I was ready to turn the movie off! I absolutely LOATHED her as Mona-Lisa in Parks and Recreation (although not as much as her brother!) and couldn't think of anything worse than a 90 or so minute movie with her as the lead but I was very amazed that she was really good in this!Aside from Slate, it's has a pretty good cast of actors, especially the leads, real characters with real emotions, a good and entertaining story that gets better towards the end.I was on my computer while watching this movie but found that as the film went on, I was paying less attention to the computer and more to the movie.While this was a good movie to watch, it won't be something I would watch again.

Talking to a family friend about films he was interested in,I was told about a Comedy that he had recently seen a trailer to.With Amazon hiking the price up by chucking postage in (what a bonus!) I was happy to find the film being sold in an auction on Ebay,which led to me getting ready to find out how obvious this child could be.The plot:Getting dumped by her boyfriend,stand-up comic Donna Stern's life goes into a tailspin.After performing a set about getting dumped,Stern meets a guy called Max,who she has a one night stand with.Waking up whilst Max is asleep,Stern grabs her clothes and sneaks out.A few weeks later Stern discovers that she is pregnant.Going to a Planned Parenthood,Stern decides to book an appointment to have an abortion.As she waits for the appointment,Stern starts to think about how to tell her family and friends about the abortion.View on the film:Making her debut,co-writer/(along with Karen Maine & Elisabeth Holm) director Gillian Robespierre and cinematographer Chris Teague give the title a warm Mumblecore appearance,by drawing Stern's life with light autumn colours,which gives the film a quirky atmosphere.Filmed in 18 days,the screenplay by Maine,Holm and Robespierre has a marvellous naturalistic quality,with Stern's joking around with friends and the support from her family avoiding any sugar-coating to instead go for something much more sincere.Taking a mature, neutral position to the subject,the writers explore the issue of abortion in a clear matter of fact manner,with the excellent comedic dialogue from Stern expressing the amount of thought she is putting into her decision.Joined by a great supporting cast which includes a very funny Richard Kind and Polly Draper, Jenny Slate gives a fantastic performance as Stern,whose stand-up shows Slate strikes with a rebellious edge,which is joined by a sweet nature over Stern deciding how to address the issue to her family and friends,in a superb film which avoids the obvious.

Obvious Child initially struck me as being a sappy rom-com about a breakup and then redemption. However, what it actually is, is much more than your standard template romantic comedy film. Obvious Child deals with much more adult and heavier subject matters then I previously thought, in fact, the whole film creates it's new original path that is very heartfelt and beautiful, whilst also being hysterically funny without being insulting.Obvious Child is much more than a typical romantic film. You might even go as far to say it is a portrait of a woman's fight for justice and soul discovery as she explores the cruel intentions of the world as she slips into loneliness. A great film that orchestrates that the rom-com genre is far from being dead and clichéd.