The opening of Gillian Robespierre’s pro-choice rom-com sees stand-up comic Donna (Jenny Slate) talking in detail about her vaginal secretions. Women’s lingerie never remains stain-free for very long, she muses - revealing all includes exposing the smears. It’s not just a dismantling of cultural ideals of the pure female form, it’s also a brilliantly self-aware nod to the character Donna embodies: Millennial Girl. Clumsy, clueless and self-sacrificing, she will offer up her insecurities and unclean underwear before you’ve asked for them, and will demand that you love her for it. But if you don’t, she’ll bounce back, thanks to humour and the sisterly solidarity of her female friends.
Though Millennial Girl is rapidly becoming a ubiquitous trope, Obvious Child has so much wit, tenderness and empowering realism that the film becomes an irresistible portrait of a girl taking control of her narrative, if not her life. Donna gets dumped by a guy who can’t stop looking at his iPhone while breaking her heart; has a drunken fling that starts with a fart to the face (like all the great love affairs) and ends with an unexpected pregnancy; and panics when she starts to fall for her disarmingly sweet would-be one-night stand (Jake Lacy, The Office.) While all of these are indicative of Donna’s endless screw-ups, her filth-laden but sweetness-imbued jokes show her conscious choice to own her mistakes, and her story.
This sense of choice extends to Donna’s abortion, which is treated delicately but unflinchingly. The decision isn’t accompanied by PC handwringing, but with beautifully frank, grounded conversations that feel stunningly real. For Donna, like so many young women, not having a baby is the most empowering, mature, utterly right decision she’ll ever make. Filthy, funny, emotive, empowering, Obvious Child is like Millennial Girl. It’s unapologetically itself, and demands to be loved.