Is TINA FEY, former head writer for "Saturday Night Live" and creator and star of one of the best shows on television, "30 Rock," going to get hit with a knee-jerk media backlash now? It could happen, given the blood-thirst that motivates so much cultural writing these days and, of course, her "convention-defying" success. I'm never quite sure that the conventions defied are real rather than media-made, but whether her new comedy "Baby Mama" blows up or is quickly ushered off the national stage like a grateful documentarian at the Academy Awards, it's a pretty safe bet that Fey's exotic status as a funny, smart woman over 35 will be cited.
"Baby Mama," which was written for Fey and her "Weekend Update" co-anchor Amy Poehler by "SNL" alumnus and "Austin Powers" screenwriter Michael McCullers, who also directs, is blithely unconcerned with gender-baiting. In fact, the movie hardly allows itself any sharp moments at all -- it's much too sweet-natured to be cruel, and much too cheerful to be angry. It probably could have pushed a few more buttons, but "Baby Mama" aims to please and succeeds.
Fey plays Kate Holbrook, a 37-year-old single businesswoman who is suddenly overcome with the desire to have a baby. She's not a basket case, she's just a fool in love with little, bald, fat incontinent creatures. She tries a sperm donor, but the insemination doesn't take. Kate has an unfortunate T-shaped uterus, and her dreams of motherhood are dashed. Enter Angie Ostrowiski (Poehler), an underachiever from South Philadelphia turned surrogate mother.
Considering the premise, "Baby Mama" might have gone the skewering route, taking on all that is over-the-top about technology-assisted, socially revolutionary baby-making and rearing. And it does get in some jabs. When it lets the mean zingers fly, it's mercilessly on-target. In one scene, Kate and Angie meet to work out some issues with Chaffee Bicknell (Sigourney Weaver), the formidable, clearly post-menopausal head of the surrogacy agency that has brought them together. When Chaffee smugly announces that she's expecting, Kate and Angie allow their shock to register. Then Angie mutters under her breath, "Expecting what? A Social Security check?"
There are other moments like that: Angie's IVF is played like a romantic scene, set to the song "Endless Love," as a fertility doctor (John Hodgman) preps the turkey-baster-sized syringe in the background; a mother in a playground tells her kids it's time for their play-date with Wingspan and Banjo; Kate's callous mom (whose liver spot medication may have caused her daughter's uterus problems) begs her not to adopt a black baby just because the celebrities are doing it.
