Anaemic Britcom

>> Maybe Baby tries hard but doesn't produce

by JOANNE LATIMER

Maybe Baby tries too hard. Like the couple that can't get pregnant in the film, the film is self-conscious to a fault. There are chuckles, you bet, and a ruthless send-up of New Scottish Cinema, but Maybe Baby isn't the witty piss-take that you'd imagine. It's a perfect airplane movie--a sexless comedy about doing it, plus guest appearances by Mr. Bean.

Let's not blame Mr. Bean. The trouble seems to be in the editing room, or at the script conference, probably a mixed meeting of studio suits and the talent from Cambridge Footlights. Hugh Laurie stars as the husband/writer who chronicles his humiliating exploits in the world of infertility. The wife (Joely Richardson) doesn't know he's pirating their real-life drama to write a script for the BBC's film division--and it's a comedy.

The supporting cast does the lion's share of the work here. Outstanding is Tom Hollander playing Ewan Proclaimer, a Scottish director with Trainspotting on the brain. He's a madman, next to Laurie's very proper Englishman. He pitches a series to the BBC called Sick Junkies and makes tampon commercials that look like The Fifth Element. He says things like "my shite shits on your shite" and has moody assistants with names like Petra.

Equally good and campy is Emma Thompson as a bucktoothed midwife. She's full of talk about pagan fertility rituals and the spiritual problems of sperm. Rowan Atkinson is Richardson's gynecologist and Joanna Lumley (from AbFab) is hilarious as Richardson's lesbian boss. They run a talent agency that provides a temptation for Richardson in the form of a seductive actor (Carl Phipps from Mansfield Park).

Laurie and Richardson themselves are rather milky. Richardson is a dead ringer for Cameron Diaz, and doesn't the film make a reference to it? As if the audience can only process her beauty by association with an American starlet. Laurie is tragically bottled and underused, showing only flashes of his brilliance with Stephen Fry in Jeeves and Wooster.

Maybe Baby is not this year's Sliding Doors, if you're in the mood for comparisons. It is, however, a decent renter for the dead of winter.

Maybe Baby opens Friday, Sept. 21