OUT OF THE MOUTHS OF BABES

A new comedy takes on the unfiltered realities of pregnancy, motherhood, and friendship

- ELIANA DOCKTERMAN

WHAT IF THE MILLENNIALS OF BROAD CITY had kids? In Babes, that show's co-creator Ilana Glazer stars as Eden, a woman who gets pregnant and leans on her lifelong bestie, Dawn (Michelle Buteau), who has two kids of her own, as she prepares for motherhood. Together they endure gigantic amniocentesis needles, unexpected leakages, and pregnancy-related horniness. Glazer co-wrote the movie and enlisted Pamela Adlon, who tackled the complexities of single parenthood in her critically acclaimed dramedy Better Things, to direct. Glazer, Buteau, and Adlon spoke with TIME about bringing motherhood in all its joyful messiness to the big screen, where it opens nationwide June 4.

You all have children of different ages. What was it like revisiting that newborn stage in the movie?

Buteau: Having boy-girl twins, I remember being so tired changing a diaper in the middle of the night, and I started to cry because I was like, "Baby girl, you have a penis now." And my husband was like, "That's the boy." You forget so much of that. Thank God, Pamela was able to draw out the blackout moments.

Adlon: I would write down all the cute things the first kid would say, and by the third kid, she was like, "What about all the cute things I say?" And I don't even know. I left that kid twice: once at a birthday party and once in a car when I parked at a valet. That's what happens when you get to your third kid.

Ilana, you said you've been pleasantly surprised by parenthood because so many books and movies and TV shows focus on how difficult motherhood is.