Jenny Slate (Obvious Child)
Mention Jenny Slate’s name to an average American, and if he or she recognizes who that is, they will likely mention the time she dropped the “F” word during her premiere episode of Saturday Night Live. That humiliating memento from her career has haunted Slate ever since. The good news is that her next most prominent staple from her career likely relied on digging back to that embarrassing experience to portray a disheveled, humiliated stand-up comic in this summer’s terrific Obvious Child.
In the era of Girls and other series featuring millennial protagonists, Obvious Child rang truer than most of those shows. As Donna Stern, an oblivious stand-up comic who decides to have an abortion in the wake of a one-night stand, Slate offers her raw, sexually charged comic voice alongside an angst that many can relate to. The film, written and directed by Gillian Robespierre, doesn’t flinch from its subject matter, whether it is Slate’s vulgar comedy routine or the beats of the lead-up to that climactic appointment.
Slate gives her all to a performance that feels like it is authentically hers. It is sometimes hard to tell where the actor’s persona ends and the character begins. Meanwhile, she shares sparkling chemistry with Jake Lacy’s Max and their fling together features some of the actor’s idiosyncratic dancing, giggling and filthy jokes. With this performance, Slate is only gaining more attention to her comedic and dramatic chops. It shouldn’t be long until that SNL gaffe is a distant memory. Why deny the obvious, child?
Published: Dec 17, 2014 12:05 am