SinceSixteen Candles,The Breakfast Club, andFerris Bueller’s Day Offare all beloved classics andNational Lampoon’s VacationandHome Aloneare considered to be two of the funniest comedy scripts ever written, there aren’t a lot of John Hughes movies that could be described as “underrated.” But not every Hughes movie was a big hit. In betweenPlanes, Trains, and AutomobilesandUncle Buck– two of Hughes’ biggest critical and commercial hits – the director suffered one of the few disappointments of his career with the unceremonious release ofShe’s Having a Baby. It received mixed reviews from critics and, according toBox Office Mojo, grossed just $16 million. But it deserved a much warmer reception.
Whilecharacters like Ferris Buellerand Uncle Buck were plucked straight from Hughes’ active imagination,She’s Having a Babyis a deeply personal story about the filmmaker himself. The movie covers the life of a young couple from their wedding day to the birth of their first child. It’s an honest look at the struggles of long-term relationships, the terror of becoming a parent, the temptations of infidelity, and the transition from starry-eyed youth into mundane adulthood. With a 5.9 score on IMDb and a 41% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes,She’s Having a Babymight seem like a movie to skip. But it’s entirely undeserving of those low numbers.She’s Having a Babyis one of the most sincere and heartfelt movies of the 1980s, an era of cinema usually marked by glitzy commercialism.
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Kevin Bacon gives one of his best early-career performances as frustrated everyman Jake, while Elizabeth McGovern provides a solid foil as his childhood sweetheart-turned-wife Kristy. LikePaul Rudd and Leslie Mann inThis is 40, their romance rings true, but so do their bitter, intense, increasingly frequent arguments. Bacon and McGovern’s electric on-screen chemistry is one of the few aspects of the film to be widely praised by critics. The two leads are backed up by some great supporting players: Holland Taylor plays Jake’s mother, a young Alec Baldwin plays his best friend, and a who’s-who of ‘80s movie mainstays like Edie McClurg and John Ashton appear in minor roles.
It’s impossible not to readShe’s Having a Babyas Hughes’ most autobiographical film. There are a lot of similarities between Hughes and his protagonist. Hughes met his wife in high school and got married at a young age. In the end credits ofShe’s Having a Baby, Hughes’ wife Nancy is credited as the movie’s “inspiration.” Like Jake, Hughes worked as a copywriter at an advertising firm while dreaming of launching a more creative writing career as a storyteller (Jake wantsto write novelswhile Hughes wanted to write movies). Both Jake and Hughes end up turning their insecurities surrounding marriage and impending parenthood into a story calledShe’s Having a Baby. The final shot of Jake’s manuscript bearing that title seems to be a message from Hughes to the audience telling them they just watched his most personal film to date.
Throughout the movie, Hughes uses cutaway fantasy sequences to show the audience what Jake is going through. In his two-star review,Roger Ebertdismissed these cutaways as “an amazing assortment of gimmicks,” but they’re a great way to visualize emotions. In the opening wedding scene, the priest’s ceremonial speech changes to fit with Jake’s fears and insecurities about getting married: “Wilt thou provide her with credit cards and a four-bedroom, two-half-bath home with central air and professional decorating?” When Jake settles intohis office cubicle, the walls literally start closing in. When Kristy tells him she’s secretly taken herself off birth control in the hope of getting pregnant, Jake’s ensuing freakout is visualized as a rocket propelling him through the desert into a dead end.
Contemporary critics were not kind toShe’s Having a Baby. Michael Wilmington wrote in theLos Angeles Timesthat the movie has an “unpleasant edge – seesawing between romance and paranoia.” Gene Siskel wrote in theChicago Tribune, “Bacon’s character is such a chronic complainer that we wonder why McGovern doesn’t dump him.” But not everyone hated the movie. InAn Evening with Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder, noted Hughes fanKevin SmithdeclaredShe’s Having a Babyto be his favorite Hughes film, and a big influence on his own work.
She’s Having a Babytakes the lovable, bright-eyed high schoolers from Hughes’ beloved teen comedies and puts them up against the harsh realities of life after they leave school. What happens when John Bender and Andie Walsh and Ferris Bueller all grow up and have to find jobs, raise children, and make their marriages work? It might not beas consistently funny asFerris Bueller’s Day Offor strike the balance between rib-tickling and tear-jerking as well asPlanes, Trains, and Automobiles, butShe’s Having a Babyis still an underappreciated gem in Hughes’ filmography.
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