Working Girl Rents Baby Mama

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler are two strong, independent and more importantly hilarious women. These funny ladies are definitely role models of mine - working their way up from small-time comedians at Second City and the Upright Citizens Brigade to starring on Saturday Night Live. And now, the they are starring in major motion pictures (with Fey even writing and sometimes producing them). Talk about inspiring. 

So when ads started coming out for a Tina Fey & Amy Poehler collaboration in the form of a movie about surrogate parents, I jumped at the chance to go see the movie that I was sure would make me pee my pants from laughter. I even think that WG1 and I saw it the day it came out (we heart going to the movies btw - I think mainly because we have an excuse to eat nachos). 

To my surprise and sublime happiness, Baby Mama wasn't just a movie about finding a surrogate parent. It also incorporated succeeding at work - or rather succeeding so much so at work that everything else gets put to the side. Tina Fey stars as Kate, a 37-year-old vice president at an organic food company who desperately wants a baby - like she says in the movie, "When other women were getting pregnant, I was getting promotions". And while the movie totally revolves around Kate's clock a ticking to have a baby (any way and at any cost), sometimes we do get to see Kate at work - and when we do it made me crack up. 

Steve Martin plays Kate's completely granola and new age boss Barry. I love Steve Martin (Father of the Bride is still one of my fave movies), and he didn't disappoint with his scenes. He had me cracking up every time he joined Fey onscreen. Barry's wacky requests (like having Kate join him on top of the conference room table to enjoy five minutes of "uninterrupted eye contact") made me happy I don't work in the organic food industry. Just a sidenote: don't let my boss see this movie because she would totally want to incorporate this eye contact idea into our one-on-one meetings. No joke.

I suppose what I truly liked most about this movie was the pairing of Fey and Poehler. Like I said before, I love their passion. They obviously bring their spunk and love of what they do to everything they do (30 Rock or SNL) and this movie is no different. While Baby Mama is not the best movie ever made, nor does it keep you laughing the entire 96 minutes, it does send the message that women can have both baby and career (if they have enough dough to go it alone - the movie tells us that it's $10,000 to have a baby through a surrogate parent). And I love that in the end, Kate and Angie are still best friends raising their children together. Two women happy with the choices that they have made in life. 

So while I didn't leave the movie theater wow'ed or with wet pants, I still admire this movie for its message and for its comedic actresses. 

Do we think I can hire Fey and Poehler to be my friends? Just for the day? 

Baby Mama comes out on DVD on September 9, 2008.