The films, shows and articles about poor, hipster, 20-something millennials from New York have told their stories by subverting the tropes of the genres to which they belong. You can’t make a romantic comedy unless you make one “ironically”.
Gillian Robespierre may have cracked that nut with her film “Obvious Child”, a story of a poor, hipster, 20-something millennial from New York trying to figure out what to do with her life, until she gets pregnant and is forced to grow up just a little bit.
“Obvious Child” takes the attributes of the coolest rom-coms and the most popular, trashy ones and combines them in a way that’s earnest, funny, heartfelt and real. It supplements the ambitious and quirky blonde working girl with the slacker and potty-mouthed brunette and doesn’t miss a beat. Instead of wackily falling into fountains and poorly choosing work over true love, “Obvious Child’s” lead is her own sort of fuck-up, basket case, choosing less awkward moments and blunt honesty as a way of teetering on good decisions and bad. The film even plucks a best friend and token gay friend from Brooklyn to fill in the rest of the genre’s blanks. Continue reading “Obvious Child”