Baby Mama

Tiny Fey (creator and star of TV’s best sitcom, 30 Rock) has an unusual way about her. She tends to play the same type of characters, yet is completely irresistible in everything she does. Her Baby Mama character is much like her Liz Lemon from 30 Rock save a fancy corporate job. As the first female head writer of Saturday Night Live, I’m relieved that Fey is finally getting her big break.

Baby Mama is a cute, often funny film about a big-shot career woman who cannot get pregnant. She tries various methods before paying 100 grand to get a surrogate mother to have her child. SNL alum Amy Poehler is great as the manically immature surrogate who moves in with Fey during the pregnancy. A typical conflict is introduced, but the actors work well with it, trying to relieve the film of blandness.

A supporting cast including Dax Shepard, Greg Kinnear and Sigourney Weaver all hit their marks. But it is Steve Martin as a eco-friendly, mega-millionaire, chain-store owner, and Romany Malco (The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Weeds) as the tell-it-like-it-is doorman who steal the movie. The scenes with these characters are by far the best in the film. While the film is nothing special, they give it spark, and keep it away from dullness. B-