Review "Obvious Child"

Obvious Child (R) Often suffering from too much intimacy, the comedy routine of twenty-something Donna Stern (Jenny Slate) never fails to make her audience squirm in their seats as often as it makes them laugh. Biting, edgy and politically ambivalent, her routine is an obvious outlet for her to vent her frustrations and lay her life-cards on the table face-up. Some of those cards might be best kept in the deck or buried in the discard pile.

Stern comes across as young and struggling but in no way idealistic. As to testing the water of life, she seems to be treading rather than swimming in her unabashed independence. A nowhere job in a used book store, a stand–up gig at a neighborhood bar, a few sexual flings, a rock solid roommate and a major life decision sum up her existence and her stand-up routine. Director Gillian Robespierre deftly keeps the story within these parameters, thus the film’s audience stays focused on this single frame in the life vulnerable young woman.

 Estrogen driven, this snippet of the life of a modern, young, urban woman holds a greater appeal to females rather than males. Fortunately, there is enough male perspective in the story to offer limited appeal to any boyfriends who are in tow.

Dark and often peppered with biting realism, the comedy is omnipresent, but seldom easy to laugh off. 4/5