Please tell us you’re offering some rewrite suggestions, Ms. Poehler.
Okay, when I first heard Tina Fey and Amy Poehler were doing a comedy called Baby Mama, I thought, without any other clues, that it had potential. I mean, they’re funny, right?
But Slashfilm has a post with a synopsis, and it turns out that Fey and Poehler didn’t write it, which means it already lacks the screwball comedy cred they’d bring to a project. Turns out it’s written and directed by Michael McCullers, who’s a SNL alum. He also wrote Austin Powers 2 and 3, Undercover Brother, and the regrettable Thunderbirds. I don’t know if that’s enough to really lower expectations (well, maybe it is), but I’d rather see something with a Fey-Poehler sensibility.
Here’s the official synopsis:
Successful and single businesswoman Kate Holbrook (Tina Fey) has long put her career ahead of a personal life. Now 37, she’s finally determined to have a kid on her own. But her plan is thrown a curve ball after she discovers she has only a million-to-one chance of getting pregnant. Undaunted, the driven Kate allows South Philly working girl Angie Ostrowiski (Amy Poehler) to become her unlikely surrogate. Simple enough…
After learning from the steely head (Sigourney Weaver) of their surrogacy center that Angie is pregnant, Kate goes into precision nesting mode: reading childcare books, baby-proofing the apartment and researching top pre-schools. But the executive’s well-organized strategy is turned upside down when her Baby Mama shows up at her doorstep with no place to live.
An unstoppable force meets an immovable object as structured Kate tries to turn vibrant Angie into the perfect expectant mom. In a comic battle of wills, they will struggle their way through preparation for the baby’s arrival. And in the middle of this tug-of-war, they’ll discover two kinds of family: the one you’re born to and the one you make.
So what we really have here is another “uptight business person has to deal with a free spirit” movie. Or The Odd Couple have a baby (note to self: someday we must do a list of the “uptight business person dealing with a free spirit” movies, because there’s been enough of them). That last sentence is a killer: “they’ll discover two kinds of family: the one you’re born to and the one you make.” I may avoid the movie just for that. It sounds like the ad for a very special episode of a sitcom. This better have some knockout performances in it to transcend the yuckness factor in this synopsis.
