The Baby Formula Breaks, Um, The Formula

Hollywood movies about birth and babies tend to take a predictable route: couple discovers that the woman of the pair is pregnant, man of the couple gets all flustered and blustery, woman remains patient and mature, misunderstandings abound, hilarities ensue, woman is rushed to hospital, man realizes error of his ways when squawling baby is placed in his arms, happy happy happy, END SCENE.

Adjust for variations involving adoption and teen pregnancy, but basically: ALL THE SAME.

Which, meh. Can we get something different around here? Please?

Oh, hey! Hello, Alison Reid!

Canadian filmmaker Alison Reid saw the lack in movies about pregnancy and childbirth. And she decided to do something about it. So she made The Baby Formula.

The Baby Formula follows the pregnancies (note: pregnancies, plural!) of Athena and Lilith (okay, not subtle, I know), a lesbian couple who decide to get pregnant together, as in, not by each other - science has not yet advanced that far - I think - but with each other. As in, at the same time. They get themselves knocked up, grapple with their extended families, and travel the well-trodden road to childbirth. Hilarities ensue.

But because Reid messes with the usual formula, the hilarities have a different skew. This is a movie about a truly unconventional - Knocked Up and Juno, after all, weren't exactly dealing with rare circumstances - pregnancy journey, a journey taken by two women at the same time. Two women, together. Which is kind of a forceful story to tell, especially as a comedy, if only because these kinds of stories about what makes a family are so seldom told.

(That the two lead actresses were actually pregnant at the time of filming lends the movie an interesting verisimilitude. These women knew exactly what it felt like to lumber through the day pregnant, because they were pregnant. Interesting to watch.)

Yeah, we have the storybooks about My Two Dads or My Two Moms, and same-sex relationships are portrayed with greater frequency in film and television than ever before, but still. A funny, sympathetic story about a loving same-sex couple who want more than anything to start a family is something that is rarely - ever? - seen on film. And something that - I would argue, passionately - should be seen on film. And for that Alison Reid should be congratulated.

(Psst - you can see the trailer HERE.)

The Baby Formula opens today in Toronto. Check the website for details on when it might come to a theatre near you..

This is an original post to Canada Moms Blog.