One-Liners: The Cycle of Life

NASTY BABY (B) - Tired of indie films set in Brooklyn in which privileged young adults are stuck in arrested emotional and career development? Here, our cast members literally act like infants to get their point across. The result is a surprisingly effective comic drama from Sebastian Silva, the Chilean writer/director of "The Maid" and "Crystal Fairy."

Silva stars as Freddy, a gay filmmaker who is in love with Mo (Tunde Adebimpe) and who is trying to conceive a child with their friend Polly (Kristen Wiig), pursuing another version of the modern family. Feeling guilty about defying nature to have a child to raise with his boyfriend, Freddy is simultaneously creating a self-flagellating indie film (within the film) mocking his own hubris. He recruits Mo and Polly and another friend, Wendy (Alia Shawkat), to appear in the film, to literally act like infants (i.e., wearing diapers and crying). Several times during the film Freddy demonstrates his newborn's wail.

That's the main plot of the meandering first half of the film. We also are introduced to The Bishop (fine veteran character actor Reg E. Cathey from HBO's "The Wire" and "Oz"), a mentally disturbed man who likes to run his leaf blower outside Freddy and Mo's window at 7 a.m. The various interactions with The Bishop (he also assails Polly during one of her walks home) set an ominous tone from the start, and it's no surprise that the simmering dread will overflow at some point.

Until then, we settle in nicely with these characters. Wiig (like most recently in "Welcome to Me" and "Skeleton Twins") is compelling and organic, putting flesh on the spare bones of a vaguely sketched character who could have easily been a cliched 30-something with a ticking biological clock. Her apparent ad-libs are refreshing, and she knits the whole movie together with her charisma. Even Polly's noodling on a guitar (she's trying to learn Daniel Johnston's "True Love Will Find You in the End," which makes for a fine theme song) seems unforced and natural.

Adebimpe has a more quiet charm, and he grows into the role of Mo, who is called on, reluctantly, to sub as dad when Freddy's sperm count is deemed too low. A road trip to meet Mo's circumspect family is perfectly rendered by Silva and carried out by Adebimpe. Prolific character actor Mark Margolis steals a few scenes as the nosy gay neighbor and father figure to the two men.

In the movie's final half hour, a remarkable event occurs (seemingly out of left field, but solidly foreshadowed), and the movie spins on a dime. The pampered life of middle-class Brooklynites becomes a lot less comfortable. These characters we've grown cozy with are suddenly sucked into a dire circumstance, and it's fascinating to watch the actors and the characters turn on their heels and react in a whole new way.

Silva once again delivers a finely observed comic drama with rich characters and a talented cast.

GRANDMA (B-minus) - Lily Tomlin is almost too good in this sometimes sharp, sometimes stumbling tale of a bitter, lonely old woman who accompanies her granddaughter on a daylong odyssey to an appointment for an abortion. At a slim 79 minutes, it's just winning enough to make it worth a $4 matinee on a rainy day.

Everyman writer/director Paul Weitz ("Admission," "About a Boy") melds "Thelma & Louise" with "Paper Moon" and lucks out with the casting of Tomlin as Elle Reid, still heartbroken after the death of her life partner a few years back and now emotionally pummeling younger women (Judy Greer is Olivia, whom Elle dumps unceremoniously after four months). When teenage Sage (spindly Julia Garner, resembling a dandelion or a bleached-out Little Orphan Annie) shows up on Sage's doorstep to beg for $630 to fund her abortion, Elle is shaken out of her ennui and, reconnecting with her early-wave feminist ideals, finds a mission that makes her feel alive again.

Elle is cash-poor and has cut up her credit cards, so she and Sage set out in Grandma's beater to collect on a few debts. The marks include local vendor Carla (a butch Elizabeth Pena) and an old college flame, Karl (a wonderfully gruff Sam Elliott), whose baby Elle aborted only to go off with another man to conceive Sage's mother. The most obvious source of money is Sage's mom, Judy (a sluggish Marcia Gay Harden), a high-powered businesswoman (she toils at a treadmill desk).

Elle's sarcasm carries the film, but too often it feels forced, as does the profanity. Rarely will you see such a gathering of foul-mouthed women in one movie. But it's vulgarity for vulgarity's sake, and the strain it puts on the actors betrays the flaws in Weitz's script. The flying expletives get wearying and ruin the narrative flow. (Grandma also delivers a crotch-shot with a hockey stick to Sage's baby-daddy, just to make Adam Sandler jealous.)

This is Tomlin's show, and she revels in the spicy dialogue. No one else would give quite the zing to one of the best lines in the film, when Elle tells Sage, who is fearful of confronting her mother, "I've been scared of your mother since she was 5 years old." Tomlin, however, also imbues Elle with a profound melancholy (especially in the riveting scenes with Elliott) but one leavened with a lacerating wit and an emotional longing. She has a heavy heart but a generous one. Young Garner is a literal and figurative lightweight in Tomlin's presence, looking very much like a child actor still searching for her voice. The supporting cast mostly come off as cardboard cutouts.

BONUS TRACKS
In the late '80s and early '90s, I joined other indie-music geeks in collecting the hand-crafted cassette tapes of the outsider artist and genius man-child Daniel Johnston, and one of his more memorable songs is threaded through "Nasty Baby":



The "Nasty Baby" trailer: