Bella

Director: Alejandro Gomez Monteverde

Although infinitely preferable to the sexist and conservative rants of Dr. Phil, normally I wouldn’t advise trying to glean any wisdom on how to live one’s life from the heartbreaking oeuvre of Tennessee Williams. Despite this, there is definitely something to be said for Blanche DuBois’s memorable confession, “I have always depended on the kindness of strangers,” uttered in A Streetcar Named Desire. Not only do those words ring true more regularly than the evening news would have us believe in real life, but often they also provide a terrific springboard for creativity in the world of independent filmmaking.

From The Station Agent to Once, it seems as though we overwhelmingly gravitate towards stories in which our main character finds either their romantic or platonic soul mate in a complete stranger. Frequently this burgeoning appreciation echoes the events onscreen as audience members find themselves becoming an integral part of a steadily growing word-of-mouth movement that brings together film lovers from all backgrounds and walks of life to find truth, solace and consolation in the fact that this world is much smaller than we may think, with people who feel things in the same way as do we.

A beautiful cinematic realization of this sentiment can be found in writer/director Alejandro Gomez Monteverde’s feature film debut Bella which earned the 2006 People’s Choice Award at the Toronto International Film Festival, once again exemplifying the determination of filmgoers to seek out and reward works with which they identify. Primarily set during the course of one fateful New York day, save for a few wisely chosen flashes backwards and forwards in time, we encounter two employees of a restaurant who find a spark of recognition in one another.

When the pretty, young waitress Nina (Tammy Blanchard) is fired by domineering Manny (Manny Perez) after arriving late to work, despite the fact that they’re relative strangers, something in the girl’s eyes and manner speaks to Manny’s brother, the restaurant’s chef Jose (Eduardo Verastegui) who follows Nina to the subway where she reveals she is pregnant. Not wanting to leave her alone and equally drawn to her plight by the ghosts of his own tragic past which are revealed over the course of the film and refreshingly without predictability, Jose brings Nina to his family’s home.

Traditional narrative structure would have us believe that we’re watching a straightforward romance where Jose would chivalrously save the young woman from a tragic fate however just when you think you have it pegged, the film moves in another direction. Moreover, Monteverde’s intelligent screenplay and carefully chosen leads never let us forget that Jose needs Nina just as much as she needs him and Bella avoids becoming mired in a tired formula as the film evolves from a naturalistic romance to one where the romance isn’t simply to be found in the relationship between a man and a woman but one that celebrates genuine love between human beings, whether it’s classified as romantic, familial or platonic.

Baby Mama

Director: Michael McCullers

We’ve had films about planning the perfect wedding, meeting the in-laws and even tracking down one’s biological parents but lately, using the popular “she’s having a baby” styled paradigm as a jumping off point, filmmakers have begun to tackle the issue of fertility that finds many loving, intelligent, and capable would-be parents having difficulty conceiving children.

While it’s used as a subplot of Helen Hunt’s far superior Then She Found Me, it’s the central plotline of writer/director Michael McCuller’s filmmaking debut, Baby Mama. McCullers, a contributing writer to the two Austin Powers sequels as well as Saturday Night Live, reunites with two SNL veterans Tina Fey and Amy Poehler for this likable yet forgettable female fluff offering that, despite its flaws, recently debuted as number one at the box office proving the vitality of female centric films in the sea of typically male dominated studio releases sure to overwhelm the multiplex when summer movie season officially begins tomorrow.

Assuredly less clever than Fey’s wry Mean Girls which the actress penned a few years earlier or even her witty TV series 30 Rock that, along with Thursday night’s other NBC hit The Office proves that the sitcom is far from dead in the wake of reality shows and criminal dramas. Baby Mama nonetheless serves as a mindless diversion sure to find an even larger audience on DVD and cable as there’s something distinctly small screen about the approach evidenced not only by the TV actress leads but also the familiar, unchallenging innocuous script.

Fey stars as Kate Holbrook, a successful career woman who’s dedicated her life to serving both the organic food company she works for but also its New Age, pony-tail wearing CEO played by Steve Martin who rewards his favorite employee by not only giving Kate the Vice Presidency in his Philadelphia based organic empire but also by trying to pass along his aura and positive vibes in sharing five minutes of uninterrupted eye contact with Fey. Martin, like a few of the other supporting players, are so broad that they seemed like celebrity walk-ons yet his humor was infectious and it’s hard to resist cracking at least a smile whenever he graces the screen.

With her newfound power, Kate becomes increasingly aware of the one thing that’s missing from her life. While most women’s magazines would have us believe it’s a man, Kate is more practical in viewing love as a pleasant bonus and one that takes a backseat to her overwhelming desire to have a child. After using her body as a pincushion injecting herself with the latest hormones during nine failed attempts at artificial insemination, Kate visits a surrogacy center run by Chafee Bicknell (Siguorney Weaver), a freakishly fertile older woman who charges clients one hundred thousand dollars in matching them with a fertility gifted woman who will bear their children.

It’s about this time that Kate encounters the trashy yet instantly likable Angie Ostrowiski (Amy Poehler), a high school dropout with a penchant for unusual shirt-vest fashion designs who, along with her self-proclaimed “inventor” boyfriend Carl (Dax Shepard)-- still bitter about Apple’s creation of the iPod-- decide that Angie will carry Kate’s egg. After a series of predictable complications, Angie arrives at Kate’s door to stay and the two women begin to resemble a modern day gender-reversal Oscar and Felix as junk food eating, Karaoke videogame playing Angie tries to teach the responsible, controlled Kate how to relax.

While the two women, whose obvious mutual respect for one another’s talent really play off each other well, McCuller’s screenplay doesn’t take advantage of their chemistry to the fullest, sending the two to navigate bumpy terrain in their burgeoning friendship as secrets are revealed and new characters, including a nearly wasted Greg Kinnear as Fey’s love interest, are thrown into the overcrowded plot. Although it's hardly one of the more memorable films the women have made, one can do much worse and I disagreed with the level of disdain most critics seemed to have for Baby Mama in the initial reviews. The bottom line is, although one will most likely forget a majority of it by the time they hit the parking lot, it’s still refreshing to see a female driven comedy that, with its very existence, may help green-light other comedies by and for women. Thus, to this end and without making us play those silly baby shower games, Baby Mama succeeds in its ability to attract ticket holders to Fey and Poehler's delivery room.

Then She Found Me

Director: Helen Hunt

“I mean it’s not gonna get any worse than this,” April Epner (Helen Hunt) explains after her husband Ben (Matthew Broderick) tells his wife that he’s made a mistake and doesn’t want this married life any longer when she learns that he’s resigned from his post teaching across the hall. Surely audiences, used to beginnings of films where spouses or lovers leave, laugh knowingly in recognition that yes, this must be the worst of it. However this first heartbreak comprises just the beginning of Helen Hunt’s directorial debut co-written by the actress from a novel by Elinor Lipman, which finds April thrown for yet another loop when her mother dies shortly after Ben’s announcement in the achingly real, bittersweet yet surprisingly humorous Then She Found Me.

I say humorous because while those two overwhelmingly depressing events would have led to the end of most stories or in real life would no doubt have caused an individual to withdraw from the world for awhile to cope with their grief, instead for April, they provide the impetus for another surprising revelation that comes in the form of a legal representative who informs April that her adopted mother wants to arrange a meeting. When the devoutly Jewish April meets spunky talk show host Bernice Graves (a pitch perfect Bette Midler), the two women couldn’t be more different yet it's precisely the meeting of these opposites that provides just the right opportunity for growth for each as they learn more about themselves and what they really want out of life as April, longing to be a mother, must contend with her own feelings of maternal abandonment in her quest to conceive a child.

While normally it would have been easy for the men to be lost in the process of this admittedly female-centric work, again we’re treated to a delightful surprise by way of the thinking woman’s sexiest man alive, Colin Firth, who stars as the bitterly divorced father of two who writes book jackets in his car in the school parking lot so that he can be nearer to his kids. Firth’s Frank who takes a liking to April nearly form the start as she accuses him of coming on to her just nine hours after Ben leaves, (which he may very well have been doing), offers April both affection and the family she’s always longed for as she tries to deal with both Bernice and her separation from Ben.

Never allowing itself to be pigeonholed by genre conventions and refreshingly shot with a naturalistic close-up heavy style to heighten its intimacy, Then She Found Me, which played at the Toronto International Film Festival before getting picked up by Think Film and Blue Rider Pictures is building up momentum around the festival circuit where it earned the 2008 Audience Award at the Palm Springs International Film Festival as well as a richly deserved Breakthrough Director of the Year honor for Hunt at ShoWest.

One of my favorite features from the eighth annual Phoenix Film Festival that should strike a chord with audiences who sought out last year’s Waitress, Then She Found Me is further proof that it takes a woman to produce intelligent, emotionally satisfying, and mature fare for women who have been long ignored by our recent overreliance on testosterone fueled tragedies.