THE BABYMAKER
US, 1970, 109 minutes, Colour.
Barbara Hershey, Collin- Wilcox Horn, Sam Groom, Scott Glenn.
Directed by James Bridges.
The Babymaker is a most unusual film. It takes an unlikely and potentially repugnant theme and makes a sympathetic movie of it which 1s quite successful. A young 'with-it' girl agrees to bear a baby for a childless couple, unable to have a child of their own. It 1s to be fathered by the husband. Conditions are agreed on and all three take an intense interest in the pregnancy. The audience also lives through the pregnancy month by month and the birth scene 1s presented vividly.
What began as a rather clinical, impersonal contract - the couple longing for a child for themselves, the girl getting her kicks and her meaning in life by bearing the baby - affects the lives of all of them in ways they did not anticipate. When the plan is fully accomplished, we are forced to ask ourselves whether it was worthwhile and what they (and ourselves) have learnt from the experience. The film avoids sentimentality and sensationalism and avoids most of the pitfalls possible for this kind of film. There is a great deal of humour (especially a staged demonstration outside a toy shop selling guns) and some warm performances by the three principals.
Barbara Hershey is vivacious and shows a wilful, seemingly irresponsible girl growing wiser. She is a good actress (Last Summer, The Pursuit of Happiness and a small part in The Liberation of L.B. Jones.)
The Babymaker asks for adult appreciation about the realities of producing a human being.
1. Reaction to the basic idea behind the film - the conception of a baby for a childless couple? The issue of surrogacy?
2. What kind of girl was Trish - how 'with-it', how responsible, how moral?
3. Why did she agree to take on the pregnancy? Her getting her kicks out of producing life? What had been her reaction to her previous pregnancy?
4. Why did the Wilcoxs go into this arrangement? What were Jay's motives? What were Suzanne's? Were they being selfish?
5. How calculated was the whole deal? Was the fact that it was so planned in 'cold blood' an inevitable factor in the plane not working out as expected?
6. What Was Trish's boyfriend's reaction to the arrangement? Was his the normal person's reaction? Did Trish explain things satisfactorily to him?
7. What impression did the film give of pregnancy? Did it help the audience share the 9 months' duration, the pain, the happiness, the expectation of new life?
8. Did Trish take her pregnancy seriously - what about her exercise, her belly-dancing?
9. Did Suzanne interfere too much? Did she have a right to live the pregnancy with Trish? (What about her cleaning up the shop for Trish and the boyfriend?)
10. What effect did the scenes of the childbirth itself have on you coming as they did after the lengthy and vivid experience of the pregnancy?
11. How did Trish change and grow up during the twelve months of the film? (The relevance here of the friend who was critical of the establishment and people like the Wilcoxs? the fake demonstration?)
12. What attitude to the baby did Trish have at the end of the film as she watched the couple go? What had she learnt about marriage, children, life?
13. What would became of her after the film ends?
14. Did the film have a moral point of view? What judgment did the film make on the whole plan - what did it show in its favour? What did it show against it?
15. What did the film have to say about the attitudes and morals of to-day's generation,, of marriage and about the sacredness of life?
16. What was the effect of the song 'People come, people go' during the film - its mood, its lyrics?
