Anyone who is a parent knows that raising a child is quite the DIY project. For some women, conception can be just as challenging, if not impossible. As tragic as this situation is, director Meghann Artes draws inspiration from her own personal struggle to bear children and creates a dazzlingly uplifting narrative in Oh Baby!
Like a bag of Skittles candies come to life and set to music, a group of dancers costumed in bright crayon hues Busby Berkeley their way down a dazzlingly white stage. Artes has been awarded an Emmy and a Peabody for her work on Sesame Street but keeps from straying into the overly cute here.
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This group would not be mistaken for Munchkins welcoming a little girl from Kansas to their Technicolor land. The work of Wardrobe Designer Anna Wooden and Wardrobe Supervisor Deanna Aliosius deserve special recognition for outstanding creativity.
While Artes has worked mainly in stop motion and pixilated animation, the first act of Oh Baby! proves she can direct live action with style and energy. The segue into stop motion for the rest of the film is a sly homage to the animated epic, Yellow Submarine with a clever device that fans of that film will recognize.
The stop motion second act represents all the “poking and prodding” that the director themselves went through on their journey to conceive a child. It certainly brings a new perspective to the phrase, “a bun in the oven.” Composer Rob Steel keeps pace with all the action with a sparkling, up-tempo score for both the live and animated portions of the film and makes amusing use of sound effects too.
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If high school biology was as much fun as Oh Baby! perhaps there would be less trepidation about talking about “the birds and the bees” between parents and their children. Certainly, it makes the point that human diversity should be celebrated as much as those dancing chromosomes seem to be enjoying themselves in the beginning of the film.
Choreographer Kristina Fluty channels Berkeley without the excessiveness he was known for so that the audience feels like part of the party without the hungover drag of too much glitter. Oh Baby! is a little gem of wonderfully synchronized music and stop motion that leaves the audience wanting more. Artes took a particularly difficult time in her past and reinterpreted it as a joyful tribute to life.
