Two Cents is a Cinapse original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team curates the series and contribute their “two cents” using a maximum of 200-400 words. Guest contributors and comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future picks. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion. Would you like to be a guest contributor or programmer for an upcoming Two Cents entry? Simply watch along with us and/or send your pitches or 200-400 word reviews to cinapse.twocents@gmail.com.
A Keaton Curation
We here at Two Cents have decided to start the year off by paying tribute to one of the greatest actresses of her generation, Diane Keaton, on her birthday month. Since passing away last October at the age of 79, many have left countless tributes to the indelible mark the actress left behind through a collection of memorable roles and performances. Cinapse recently paid tribute to the recently-departed actress twice in pieces honoring her 21st century work and her directing efforts. However, Two Cents has decided to venture back and revisit classic Diane Keaton through a series of titles that helped to make the Oscar-winning actress a truly one-of-a-kind performer. [Frank Calvillo]
The Pick: Baby Boom (1987)
Co-written by (formerly) married filmmakers Nancy Meyers and Charles Shyer, who’d go on to work with Keaton again in Father of the Bride, Baby Boom verges on screwball but isn’t quite there. Keaton stars as a skilled career woman thrown for a loop when a cousin dies and leaves her their baby. The comedy co-stars Harold Ramis, Sam Shepard, and James Spader, among others.
The Guest
Baby Boom is a sort’ve interesting film that is enjoyable due primarily to Keaton’s screen persona yet at the same time horrifying through a modern lens as it’s idea of a woman in a modern working world is terribly dated and even when thinking of the film upon its original release certain elements feel like a horror show.
Diane Keaton plays J.C. Wiatt, a successful businesswoman whose life is thrown into turmoil when she inherits a baby from a distant relative. Keaton is marvelous, being the necessary spark that makes this film totally watchable. Whether she is uncomfortably holding her newly inherited child in the early portions of the film or later finding her working independence again I am just so attracted to Keaton and her particular way of delivering dialogue/action.
Keaton has a particular way of yelling dialogue that I find so captivating comedically that I instantly laugh at the way she manages to yell while also throwing her body around in such a swift movement her physicality amongst the great screen physical comedians like Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton. The film also contains moments of heart where we witness a genuine bond form between Keaton and Sam Shepherd’s Dr. Cooper that when they end up together at the end it makes sense due to both actors’ on-screen bond.
The Team
Kicking off with an introduction by newswoman Linda Ellerbee, Baby Boom quickly establishes setting and subject; we’re following the story of Manhattan businesswoman J. C. (Diane Keaton). She’s a woman focused on her career, telling her boss who offers a possible promotion both “You know me, I like work,” and “I don’t want it all” (her latter her response to a question about wanting a family). The story is obviously building up to something, and that something is a late night call whereby she inherits a barely-known cousin’s baby.
There’s some humor in J.C.’s utter cluelessness – both she and her boyfriend Steven (Harold Ramis) struggle with how to change diapers, feed baby Elizabeth, and just generally care for a small human. Keaton’s sideways carry of the baby is hilarious, although of course I worried about the child’s safety (unless there is creative editing I missed, she’s really carrying the girl instead of a doll/dummy). Steven breaks up with her when she decides to raise the child. Even after a nanny hunt (with a dash of racism, yikes), J.C. struggles at work with the baby and lacks any support network that might help.
This film is a ridiculous fantasy – although the misogyny in her work environment is extremely believable – but moving to Vermont on a whim and starting up a successful business in mere months is preposterous. We’re never given exact timing, but the baby appears the same age at the start that she is at the end. Such a big deal is made about her nanny search earlier in the film that any time in Vermont the baby isn’t with her, my friend and I wondered who was watching Elizabeth. That was almost as distracting as the over-the-top scoring by Bill Conti (Rocky, The Right Stuff).
I’m a huge fan of filmmaker Nancy Meyers, but her touch isn’t as evident in this work (which was directed by her husband at the time, Charles Shyer). Diane Keaton is funny, especially in Sam Shepard’s first scene with her. They share a sweet spark, but the true pair of the film is J.C. and Elizabeth. The messaging of the film is too muddled and the storytelling lacks subtlety. Despite Keaton’s obvious comic talents, Baby Boom is a mess.
Baby Boom, the first collaboration between Diane Keaton and Nancy Meyers, contains plenty of that Meyers punch, which the actress is such a natural fit for. Baby Boom contains plenty of comedic sight gags and setups that work beautifully, including the parade of potential nannies, Baby Elizabeth and the spaghetti, and the humiliation J.C. experiences when she finds out she’s been examined by a vet (Sam Shepard- at his most gorgeous). The film was a much-needed hit for the actress and had, according to critic Leonard Maltin: “restored some of the luster to Keaton’s tarnished star” following a series of flops during this time. So good was her performance that there were even rumblings of an Oscar nomination.
Watching the movie today, I couldn’t help but admire Meyers’ and director Charles Shyer’s effort as a takedown of the 80s. The “greed is good” decade of yuppies and Reaganomics resulted in a society far more self-absorbed and materialistic than that of the 1970s, a society which the movie takes every opportunity to flay and sear through its comedy.
Baby Boom exposes the two choices available to a woman, career or motherhood. Sure, women had entered the workforce by then, but society was not yet ready to let a woman have both a career and a family, which is why the movie has JC immediately want to get rid of Baby Elizabeth at first, before struggling with trying to make time for both her and her career. The character’s retreat to the country may seem like a death sentence, but there’s something actually liberating in JC breaking free from the shackles of yuppiedom that the decade foisted upon her.
Were Baby Boom made today, the stakes certainly wouldn’t feel as high. JC would be able to have both a child and a career. But in 1987, such a notion was rarely seen. The movie knows this, and the way it offers such a stark criticism of the era though a well-written comedic script and Keaton’s pitch-perfect turn makes it more of a success than some may give it credit for.
Baby Boom isn’t, at first glance, a particularly “Ed Travis” kind of movie. Action, sci-fi, cult, and horror take a much bigger piece of my movie watching pie than romantic comedy, melodrama, etc. But that said, Cinapse is all about cinematic exploration and 100% of the films our team chose to honor the career of Diane Keaton were first-time watches for me. And I’m not embarrassed one bit to say that Baby Boom was my favorite that I’ve watched so far.
Hugely satisfying above all else, Baby Boom is a fantastic product of the studio system. You’ve got a wonderful cast, a screenplay that hits, and a wildly enjoyable journey our main character goes on to reach a level of independence and agency most female lead characters can rarely even dream of.
Keaton’s J.C. Wiatt is immediately depicted as competent, capable, and driven, but in that Diane Keaton way, she’s also charming and aspirational. It looks like screenwriter Nancy Meyers is a full on queen of romantic comedy writing with numerous all-timers to her name, and co-written with director Charles Shyer, Baby Boom feels like it was designed from the jump to genuinely explore whether a woman of the 1980s really could have it all. Sadly, Wiatt’s hard uphill battle to finding a way for herself to indeed have it all, her way, doesn’t seem to have gotten any easier here some 40 years later.
While it absolutely does FEEL like a movie, with everything wrapped up neatly in a bow by the end and a fully realized journey having been taken, one thing that stands out about Baby Boom are its moments of authenticity constantly interwoven. I love that when a baby appears in J.C.’s life, her boyfriend played by Harold Ramis simply opts out. They don’t have a big fight, or try to make it work, they just go their separate ways. I also like that the workplace environment isn’t overly macho or chauvinist; it simply is what it is, and that more effectively shows the challenges a realistic woman like J.C. has to undergo in order to make the life she wants possible. By taking a less cartoonish approach, Baby Boom hits closer to home and maintains relevance 40 years later.
PS: No room to fully flesh this out in this format, but there’s a bit of a “Bizarro-Hallmark Movie” deal happening here where instead of a woman going back to her hometown to find love outside the city, J.C. charts a very similar course but legitimately loved the big city and thought of it as her native hometown, so it feels more transformative, while still feeling familiar.
January Lineup: A Keaton Curation
