The big romantic kiss in the Brooklyn rom-com takes place between a couple who have just peed on the sidewalk together, and after the Boy farts in the Girl’s face. Ah, young love.
Attempting to subvert the rom-com formula, “Obvious Child” is instead simply a bad rom-com. It isn’t terrible because of its attraction to dirt (every other scene seems to take place inside a bleary, graffiti-covered coed restroom) or the determined ugliness of the photography, which seems to have been achieved by smearing a coat of 10W-40 over the lens. No, this film by director/co-writer Gillian Robespierre just isn’t funny, and the mismatched leads aren’t even interesting together.
Brooklyn comic and former “SNL” cast member Jenny Slate plays Brooklyn comic Donna Stern, whose raunchy stand-up act leads to her getting dumped by her boyfriend. After a drunken flirtation in a bar, she has what she thinks is a one-night stand with an amiable, bland corporate type named Max (Jake Lacy). To her surprise, though, he continues to try to make contact with her, which is really awkward because their romp led to a pregnancy that Donna plans to terminate in two weeks.
Donna spends most of the movie talking about her upcoming abortion, with Max seemingly the only person in Brooklyn who doesn’t know about it. If she told him about her plans, the movie would be over; but, in the meantime, the pair keep meeting cute in ways that are absurdly contrived, even for a rom-com. One key encounter happens because Max has borrowed a book from her mom, who happens to be his ex-professor, and has come all the way to the mom’s apartment to hand-deliver it to her while Donna happens to be there.
An air of desperation hangs about everything Slate does: She seems desperate to get our attention with naughty humor, then desperately cutesy later, when she makes childish faces while stalking her ex and plays an entire scene while kneeling inside a cardboard box. I pitied her, and pity is death to comedy.