BABY BOOM

US, 1987, 110 minutes, Colour.
Diane Keaton, Sam Shepard, Harold Ramis, Sam Wanamaker, James Spader.
Directed by Charles Shyer.

Baby Boom is a star vehicle for Diane Keaton. She is a successful businesswoman as well as surrogate mother. It is a bit lighter than the usual films associated with Keaton.

The film also fits into the preoccupation with babies in 1987-88, especially with Three Men and a Baby and She's Going To Have A Baby. Keaton would work with Charles Shyer in the 1990s in the two Father of the Bride films. The film was co-written with Nancy Meyers, Shyer’s then wife. Meyers later directed What a Woman Wants and Somethings Gotta Give.

The film has a good cast, is stronger comedy with more social comment than Three Men and a Baby. However, it relies on the American Dream, romance, feminism and the ever-cute children.

1. The popularity of babies in films in the late 1980s? Comedy, cute? Focus on life, relationships and values? Positive outlook?

2. The world of New York, the city and the skyline, streets, busy? Business and management? The world of wealth and restaurants? The contrast with the simple town in Vermont, the beautiful Vermont countryside? The seasons? Musical score and songs?

3. The title and its focus? Humour?

4. The introduction and the feminist commentary: business, women's achievement? In relationship to what happened to J.C.?

5. New York and women, J.C.Wyatt and her successful work, her relationship to Fritz, her relationship to Ken? Her work, workaholic? The number of accounts? On the phone? Dedicated to her job? offered the partnership and her legs shaking? The conditions and her fulfilling them? Her relationship with Steven, their living together. the work in bed, the two phones, the four-minute sex? Back to work? All set for her career?

6. The phone call, her uncertainty, going to the airport, signing the document, getting Elizabeth? Taking her, the awkward handling her like baggage? At the restaurant and her embarrassment with the crying? Trying to make a deal? The failure of the partnership? Ken and his coming up, the early meetings and her absence, ambitions, her decision to leave?

7. The cuteness of the baby, Steven coming home and his shock, their playing, talking, throwing the spaghetti and cleaning up, the baby's cough, J.C. on a buying spree?

8. The question of adoption, the prospective parents and the audience's dislike of their attitude, J.C's deciding to take her? The interviews with the variety of nannies - and the comedy of their attitudes? Her fear of Helga kidnapping? Eve and her innocence and the sex with the boy and her being ousted? Going to Cleveland, the phone call in the middle of the meeting?

9. J.C. and the home in Vermont, her hopes, buying the house, going to the country, the barn, milking the cow, the apples? Making the sauce? The house as a disaster, the plumbing, the snow, the roof, the electricity? The electrician and his coming - his laconic attitudes and quotes for money?

10. Her fainting, her pouring out her heart to Jeff Cooper, discovering he was a vet, her embarrassment, antagonism towards him? Meeting him in the library?

11. The baby food, its being sold, her studying up methods, going on tour, the great success, the phone call from Fritz, the meeting with the Board, the man from Cleveland? Their persuasion, arguments, her decision not to sell?

12. The relationship with Jeff, his kissing her, the punctured tyre and his help, the dance, the relationship, her decisions? Her devotion to Elizabeth?

13. The happy ending and success - J.C. having everything: the fulfilment of the American Dream?

14. J.C. looking after Elizabeth, going to the park and listening to the mothers booking their children into kindergartens and schools, taking Elizabeth to the classes for advancing the children and the comedy with the bars and rings, the athletics, the cards of knowledge for the children to learn?

15. Themes of the '80s, Diane Keaton vehicle, comic style - romantic and cute?