Mockumentary-style filmmaking is among my favorites, but it has been over-indulged and not true to its form in some recent TV shows and movies. However, The Baby Formula—playing Friday, Nov. 6, at Landmark's Century Centre Cinema, 2828 N. Clark, at 9:15 p.m. as part of the Reeling Film Fest—is among my new favorite lesbian films.
I had a chance to meet the film's director, Alison Reid, and her partner, Cheryl Izen, at San Francisco's Frameline Film fest this summer, when Hannah Free premiered, and they were very generous in offering advice about their road so far with their first feature film. I had loved the trailer for Baby Formula but, as with a lot of lesbian films, I feared the trailer would not live up to my expectations. It does, and I highly recommend this comedy for your Reeling viewing pleasure.
The Baby Formula, made in Canada, follows the exploits of a lesbian couple who are on the sci-fi fertility cutting edge, in a perhaps not-too-distant future when lesbians can actually have each other's babies rather than need an outside donor. Holy hormones, Catwoman! Watch out as the tears and laughter begin.
Angela Vint ( Athena ) and Megan Fahlenbock ( Lilith ) are well-cast as these partners in parenting, and you have a real sense of their screen partnership. In real life, director Reid managed to shoot this film timed to the actor's real pregnancies. The water breaking? That was happening in real life the same day. I can't even imagine how difficult this shoestring budget was with the added dimension of real pregnancies.
The science in Baby Formula has the spark of reality because Reid did her research, speaking to scientists and bioethicists.
"Until recently, it has been impossible for gay couples to conceive of the idea of being able to combine their genetics and have their own biological children," Reid writes in her press kit. "That has always struck me as sad. When I read an article about some science that made it possible to create offspring from two female mice, it resonated with me, and inspired me to make this film."
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The two leads are wonderful, but Jessica Booker is particularly great as Grandma Kate, who steals the scenes she is in. Each of the family members have their own troubles, and the actors are allowed to seem human, not stereotypes. And wait for the credits, because the scene with the stars singing Black Eyes Peas' "My Humps" is not to be missed.
See www.reelingfilmfestival.org .
