After the hectic screening of “Road House” on Friday, the SXSW programming team changed things up on Saturday with the world premiere of the scandalous and serious “Babes.” The film is Pamela Adlon's feature directorial debut, following her famed series “Better Things,” and is produced and co-written by “Broad City’s” Ilana Glazer, who stars in it.
In the film, which Neon will release in late spring, Glazer plays Eden, who becomes pregnant after a brief but intense affair and decides to raise the baby alone. During her pregnancy, she relies on her lifelong best friend, Dawn (Michelle Buteau), who is married with two young children.
At times, the film has the same anything-goes sensibility as “Broad City,” but it draws on the realities of pregnancy, in all its beauty and biological harshness, in a way few films have done before. It all plays as a mix of affectionate sweetness and uninhibited directness.
For the Q&A after the SXSW screening, Glazer, Adlon and Buteau took the stage with co-writer and producer Josh Rabinowitz, who also has a brief cameo as a waiter trying to figure out what to do while Buteau's character she goes into labor on her table. .
Glazer said that fellow producer Susie Fox, also with two young children at the time Glazer and Rabinowitz's wife were pregnant, had a “shower vision” of the film.
“And then we found that we were really interested in how it changed our friendships,” Glazer said. “That's how we started organizing all the ideas.”
Adlon joked that he became involved in the project when “Better Things” wrapped. “I'm done or they canceled it, I'm done,” he said.
Adlon noted that he wanted his own children to see the film. “This movie is for all ages,” she said. “I know we're in Texas, but Texas is big.”
She added that she was drawn to the film's exploration of friendship. “Someone gets a partner and someone gets a child and maybe another child and someone doesn't have one yet,” Adlon said. “And I love it when [Glazer’s character] He says, 'Best friends get so screwed up in real life,' and that's so real.”
Buteau recently saw his own series, “Survival of the Thickest,” renewed for a second season on Netflix. Buteau said collaborating with Adlon and Glazer “felt like Beyoncé and Usher at a Super Bowl: primed for success.”
Adlon addressed the film's mix of body humor and emotional nuances.
“Well, it's raw,” Adlon said. “You see all this raw stuff in male comedies and we weren't trying to be raunchy. Look, we could do what” – and here she grabbed her crotch – “what guys do, but it's really important because we laugh a lot as women and, as mothers, it can be very dark and scary. And as women, your doctors don't really share with you what you're going through. It's something so beautiful that it makes me want to cry. Those are women's friendships. This is real.”
A question from the audience asked for any advice for comedians who are just starting their careers.
“How much time do we have? Let's organize a workshop,” Buteau said, before continuing with some concrete advice. “Don't say no to yourself before someone else tells you. Keep writing. Be very comfortable with rejection. Yes You do something in one room and someone laughs, it could be a laugh somewhere else. And don't compare yourself to someone else's journey because you won't get anywhere. You're just competing with yourself. Are you writing this?
Glazer said, “I need those notes.”
Another audience question asked Adlon where she found her inspiration to explore intimacy and the female experience.
“I love human interaction,” Adlon said. “I love dark and bold things, but they have to have heart. I really like to push the envelope and I like to make people uncomfortable and then release everyone with just heart, hope and a great feeling. It's all in transitions and human interactions and that's the way I see things. “I'm so happy that you all came and we really loved the movie and we're so grateful.”
Turning to SXSW festival boss Claudette Godfrey, who was moderating the Q&A, Adlon added: “I was trying to sum it up.”
