OBVIOUS CHILD written and directed by Gillian Robsepierre, with Jenny Slate, Jake Lacy, Gaby Hoffmann and Richard Kind. An A24 release. 85 minutes. Opens Friday (June 20). For venues and times, see listings.
If you’re a comedy fan, you’ve seen Jenny Slate somewhere.
She’s popped up on Parks And Recreation (as Jean-Ralphio’s even more obnoxious sister Mona-Lisa), had recurring spots on Kroll Show, Bored To Death and Hello Ladies, voiced the psychotic Tammy on Bob’s Burgers and even done straightish work on House Of Lies opposite her Parks And Rec brother, Ben Schwartz.
There was also that year she spent on Saturday Night Live, where she and her partner, Dean Fleischer-Camp, created the animated short Marcel The Shell With Shoes On, but that didn’t end so well.
Slate was fired from SNL after one season, eventually moving to Los Angeles to chase roles and do stand-up – which is where I saw her in the summer of 2012 hosting an intimate and really funny night of comedy.
Two years later, she’s channelled her casual, confessional stage persona into a breakout turn in Gillian Robespierre’s Obvious Child. Slate plays Donna Stern, a Brooklyn comic reeling from a bad breakup and the impending loss of her day job – and that’s before she finds she’s pregnant after a one-night stand.
In Toronto on the last leg of a month-long press tour, Slate explains that while Donna isn’t based on her own life or act, the character came along at exactly the right time.
“I had really bad stage fright,” she says. “Debilitating. Probably to the point where a day and a half before that [2012] show I was just, like, nauseous and crying. It finally went away, but it took a while.”
Slate and writer/director Robespierre had made a short version of Obvious Child in 2009, but hadn’t considered what the character of Donna did for a living – there wasn’t time to include that aspect of her life. Making her a stand-up in the feature version not only plays to Slate’s strengths, but also gives the movie a way to comment on the character’s immaturity: Donna can’t articulate what she’s feeling unless she’s doing it as a bit.
“It’s like there’s a panel of controls in front of her and she’s not using any of them at the start,” Slate says. “She’s passive. She’s not weak, but she’s kinda being lazy, you know? Making excuses: ‘I got dumped! I got fired! I got drunk because I got dumped and fired!'”
The pregnancy that results – and Donna’s early decision to terminate it as soon as possible – has turned Obvious Child into a bit of a political football, to the point where the poster includes a pull-quote that calls it “The most winning abortion-themed rom-com ever made.”
Slate isn’t totally comfortable with this.
“I think it just takes us a step back,” she says of the quote. “I mean, I get why it’s on there. I get that they wanna draw everyone’s eye, [but] it’s a thoughtful movie it’s gentle and really funny. I hope if people think that’s what it is and go see it, they’ll come out saying, ‘That was so much more than what they said.'”
Interview Clips
Jenny Slate on building her character’s stand-up:
Slate on how happy she is to have made a movie with some complexity:
Slate on being fired from Saturday Night Live, and the emotional fallout:
Slate on shaking her stage fright, and the difference between performance and narcissism:
normw@nowtoronto.com | @wilnervision
