The Baby Formula is a mockumentary about two lesbians who discover a way to have each other's child, no sperm required.
So badly do they want their own child that the women use 'female sperm,' created from one of the women's stem cells. Athena (Angela Vint) can then become pregnant with Lilith's (Megan Fahlenbock) baby.
Pregnant Athena is cheerfully enjoying morning sickness, hormone swings and general bloat, and it looks like so much fun that Lilith is a bit jealous. Using the same secret technology to transform Athena's stem cells into female sperm, Lilith likewise becomes pregnant. Athena is a bit ticked off by this turn of events, but now each woman is carrying the other's child.
Now they only have to deal with their family's reactions.
Athena has a religious mom (Rosemary Dunsmore, offering the movie's finest performance) who thinks her daughter just hasn't met the right guy.
Athena also has an ailing dad, a feisty grandma and a goofy brother who is creating problems by claiming to have fathered Lilith's child.
Lilith has alcoholic parents, and is disappointed to find that she may not be able to count on them to be good grandparents.
The two pregnant women fight and make up, grouse about being pregnant, interact with their wacky families and go to the big Pride parade in Toronto. The action moves slowly but surely toward a predictable happy ending.
The Baby Formula is proof that lesbian romantic comedies are every bit as dopey as the straight variety. This one, mixing sitcom writing with all that stem cell reproductive stuff, plays like I Love Lucy meets Bill Nye the Science Guy.
Not that it's a total write-off. Despite some suspiciously manipulative tragic bits, The Baby Formula is generally sunny and bright, and both lead actresses are easy to watch. (As it happens, both women -- Angela Vint and Megan Fahlenbock -- really were pregnant as this movie was filmed, an unexpected bonus on the verisimilitude front.)
For all its good intentions and its message of accepting people -- even family! -- for who they really are, The Baby Formula is every bit as twee as the punny title would suggest.
(This film is rated 14-A)
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