It’s a fact of life: eventually, we all grow up. Our priorities shift; habits molt or harden; the tastes that seemed to define us change. Such maturity, or even just the novelty for new experiences after a period of time, came even for the fiercely shameless and stubbornly chaotic twentysomethings of Broad City, the decade-defining Comedy Central series created by and starring Ilana Glazer and Abbi Jacobson as two free-wheeling besties scrounging through New York. Since the show ended two seasons early in 2019, owing to the stars’ desire for new creative paths, Jacobson went on to create the acclaimed remake of A League of Their Own. Glazer reinvested in her standup career, and gave birth to a daughter, in 2021.
That experience clearly informed Babes, a new pregnancy comedy co-written by Glazer and Josh Rabinowitz, which marks both a return to form for the performer and fresh, compelling terrain. For Babes, Pamela Adlon’s directorial debut, which premiered at SXSW this weekend, depicts a type of maturation so often left off-screen, in favor of the assumed inevitability of the nuclear family: that growing up is open for definition, with or without partners or children; that friendship can be as much the guiding beacon of life as romantic partnership; that just because things get more serious doesn’t mean you can’t still be unguarded, open, yourself.
