Maybe Baby
I’m always dubious about watching a film that’s been adapted from a book that I absolutely loved reading. Sometimes the filmmakers can do the book justice, "High Fidelity" for example and sometimes it’s a complete disaster like a lot of Stephen King adaptations (Although not all of them)...
I’m always dubious about watching a film that’s been adapted from a book that I absolutely loved reading. Sometimes the filmmakers can do the book justice, "High Fidelity" for example and sometimes it’s a complete disaster like a lot of Stephen King adaptations (Although not all of them).
I first read "Inconceivable" (The book "Maybe Baby" is based on) while I was on holiday in Gran Canaria. I’d read all the previous Ben Elton books but I found this to be something totally fresh and different. I was so engrossed with the book that I read it from cover to cover in two days. My girlfriend was so curious as to why I couldn’t put it down, that when I finished she started reading it and was instantly hooked in the same way.
With this in mind it was with some trepidation that I approached the film “Maybe Baby”, especially with some of the uninspiring reviews I had read of the film. So was I disappointed? Well, I will tell you later on. First I’ll run through some of the disk details.
Plot
Sam Bell (Hugh Laurie) and Lucy Bell (Joely Richardson) are a happily married coupled with just one problem. They want to have a baby but no matter how much they try (and they try a lot) they just can’t seem to conceive. Sam is a fairly successful middle management type at the BBC but he isn’t happy with his job and wants to be a writer.
When Sam hits upon the idea of turning their attempts at conceiving a child into a script Lucy is horrified and forbids it. Sam does it anyway and meanwhile Lucy is being tempted to stray by the actor Carl Phipps. With these distractions and disloyalties, Sam and Lucy’s love for each other is put to the ultimate test.
Video/Audio
The picture comes in a 1.85:1 Letterbox format. For me, I could not believe that such a new film had been released with a non-anamorphic print. Having said that, the picture quality is still pretty good with good colour and no evidence of any scratches etc. I just think though that there’s no excuse to not make a new film anamorphic on DVD.
As you would expect for a "Romantic Comedy", the sound stage doesn’t get taxed too much. The dialogue is crisp and clear and the musical score sounds very good. The audio track is in a Dolby Digital 5.1 English.
Extras
The Audio Commentary by Ben Elton and Hugh Laurie is good fun to listen to. As you can imagine Ben and Hugh are very light hearted through the whole track and are constantly joking around.
There’s a whole host of Cast & Crew Interviews. Each persons interview is broken into snippets with a question being displayed on screen before the snippet. The interviewees include Ben Elton, Hugh Laurie, Joel Richardson, Joanna Lumley, Adrian Lester, Rachel Stirling, Tom Hollander and Phil McIntyre.
Finally there’s a Theatrical Trailer included.
Overall
I have to say that "Maybe Baby" and I didn’t get off to a good start when I discovered that it wasn’t even anamorphically enhanced. Apart from this initial frustration however I really tried hard to give it a good chance. Unfortunately, the film just didn’t do it for me.
It did have its funny moments but even when these happened I would think back to the book and think that the scene just didn’t do the script justice. One particular example (possible spoiler here) is the scene when Sam gets his sperm test results back. This was absolutely hilarious in the book, but the scene, while amusing just totally failed to capture the comedy of it.
It’s not that it’s a really bad film. In fact I would recommend anyone to rent it to see what you think. My only problem is that I feel it could have been so much more. Generally the cast are not particularly bad, Hugh Laurie is probably the best of the bunch and fits into the role of Sam extremely well. The only character that I felt was utterly cast wrong is James Purefoy as Carl Phipps. Not that there’s anything wrong with his performance, he just didn’t fit my idea of Carl Phipps at all.
There’s also a surprising amount of British film and comedy icons playing cameo roles, such as Rowan Atkinson, Dawn French, Joanna Lumley and Emma Thompson. I felt these characters were under utilised and if I was cynical enough I would say that they’re only in there to prove the point that it’s a British film made by British filmmakers.
As I say, it’s not terrible but it could have been so much more. Perhaps if you haven’t read the book you will get more out of it. For me though, coupled with the non-anamorphic print, I think I can only give the disk a middle of the road 2.5 lards.
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