ON SCREEN: Babyfever
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eye WEEKLY August 1, 1996
Toronto's arts newspaper .....free every Thursday
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ON SCREEN ON SCREEN
BABYFEVER
Starring Victoria Foyt, Matt Salinger and Dinah Lenney. Screenplay by
Victoria Foyt and Henry Jaglom. Directed by Henry Jaglom. (PG) Opens
Aug. 2.
(eeee of 5 eyes)
by
KATHE GRAY
Met with a bunch of old friends at a class reunion last weekend and
discovered that I am at that two-baby stage of life. To a one, my
fellow graduates have two children each. I'm still stupefied: my only
claim to maternal instinct is a dog who pretends not to know me when
we go to the park. This, I realize, would be why my mother no longer
laughs at jokes about turkey basters.
Jokes about said kitchen utensil are but one of the things you'll
eavesdrop on in Henry Jaglom's Babyfever. Jaglom, who's wooed many a
female filmgoer with his insightful and realistic portrayals of
women's lives, has ever refuted the phrase "actions speak louder than
words." Dense with dialogue, his films are about the things people do
when they're just being themselves. In Jaglom's world, people talk.
Like his art-house success Eating, this film takes place at a women-
only party. However, this Jaglom talkfest is not about dessert. It's
the rug rat, that wee entity whose existence has been threatened by
the advent of the career woman. Of course, even in the human jungle,
it's not over 'til the fat lady sings and in this movie, the fat lady
is pregnant. Set at a Malibu baby shower, Babyfever sees a chorus of
31 women speak candidly about children, unstable partnerships and the
spectre of the atrophied ovary.
On the one hand, the film is a minor miracle, due mainly to Jaglom's
loose direction: the dialogue is spontaneous and poignantly honest,
the acting is natural, the detail consummate. But all you
thirtysomethings, be prepared -- Babyfever is also a perfectly ghastly
trick. It made me own up to the horrible truth that I have the
potential within to become a biological time bomb. It could do the
same to you.
Oh ma, there may be grandchildren yet.
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