Baby Boom, it starts out saying one thing, glorifying the contradiction, and then ending with something of a resolution between the two.
Diana Keaton is the definitive 80s power woman, a corporate work-a-holic with no interest in domestics. Her only drive is work. And her boss likes it that way, a woman with limited outside interests, giving her the ultimatum: work or life. That may seem more significant if she was engaged in an important job like say, a public interest lawyer or something. But Keaton's character, J.C. Watts, just works in advertising. Ironically, when it comes to domestic lines, the business brain of Watts just can't seem to develop ad campaigns for that which she knows nothing about...well, not yet.
On a whim, Watts learns of the death of some distant, unknown relative, which named her the surviving guardian of a baby named Elizabeth (played, as always, by twins). So Watts is faced with a new responsibility. Hell, if she can master the corporate world, how hard can the mommy life be? Hard enough. And for Watts, probably more difficult than most, as she tries balancing her beloved work life with that of her newfound family life. Unfortunately, she can't keep up with the former, at least not to the extent of the twelve hour day, seventy-two hour week (or whatever the narration said) that she used to do prior to Elizabeth's arrival, and this starts to concern her boss, who makes the sleazy bachelor newcomer (with no anatomical or domestic to hinder performance) Ken Arrenberg (James Spader) her replacement.
Well, Watts, gradually becoming close to Elizabeth, spends the next half of the movie embracing the excesses of mom first and working mom second as she and Elizabeth chuck the city and move to a Vermont country home, where she comes up with some baby food recipe that turns out to be quite successful. So successful, that she once again becomes the envy of her former employers, and puts her in a very powerful bargaining position which makes her wonder, is J.C. Watts willing to go all the way for her job again? Aren't women allowed some balance between work life and family life that would still enable them to be just as successful as their male coworkers? Unfortunately, in trying to illustrate the idea of a working woman's independence, they get a little too dreamy in the idea of family life over other opportunities.
It's a nice film, too, that explores the cut-throat corporate world and the issues that working women are confronted with, despite the fact that it gets a little too cutesy at points. It also forces people to ask how far are they willing to go just for the simple pleasures of making money? Watts spent all of her time at work, and even without a family, she hardly had a normal relationship with her equally corporate boyfriend. It was so awkward and detached. But, when she moved out to Vermont and started giving more attention to the things that mattered (i.e. Elizabeth), her manner of relationship changed, having a real relationship with the local vet.
It's something like in that Ron Howard movie, 'Gung Ho,' where Gedde Wantabe's Japanese character learns from his American employees that the Japanese work ethic of "what is good for the company" ignores things that are more important to a person's life such as family and friends. He notes that the water cooler conversations don't go much beyond whatever situation arises at work. The quiet Japanese man that worked at the plant at the end, happily, but briskly, injects into the conversation that his wife had a baby girl. Something he did not know of him before, but was happy to have made a breakthrough and hear something other than anything related to the company. Well, Baby Boom makes these same points, which seemed particularly more important in the Age of Yuppies, the decade of corporate furor.
Diana Keaton is the definitive 80s power woman, a corporate work-a-holic with no interest in domestics. Her only drive is work. And her boss likes it that way, a woman with limited outside interests, giving her the ultimatum: work or life. That may seem more significant if she was engaged in an important job like say, a public interest lawyer or something. But Keaton's character, J.C. Watts, just works in advertising. Ironically, when it comes to domestic lines, the business brain of Watts just can't seem to develop ad campaigns for that which she knows nothing about...well, not yet.
On a whim, Watts learns of the death of some distant, unknown relative, which named her the surviving guardian of a baby named Elizabeth (played, as always, by twins). So Watts is faced with a new responsibility. Hell, if she can master the corporate world, how hard can the mommy life be? Hard enough. And for Watts, probably more difficult than most, as she tries balancing her beloved work life with that of her newfound family life. Unfortunately, she can't keep up with the former, at least not to the extent of the twelve hour day, seventy-two hour week (or whatever the narration said) that she used to do prior to Elizabeth's arrival, and this starts to concern her boss, who makes the sleazy bachelor newcomer (with no anatomical or domestic to hinder performance) Ken Arrenberg (James Spader) her replacement.
Well, Watts, gradually becoming close to Elizabeth, spends the next half of the movie embracing the excesses of mom first and working mom second as she and Elizabeth chuck the city and move to a Vermont country home, where she comes up with some baby food recipe that turns out to be quite successful. So successful, that she once again becomes the envy of her former employers, and puts her in a very powerful bargaining position which makes her wonder, is J.C. Watts willing to go all the way for her job again? Aren't women allowed some balance between work life and family life that would still enable them to be just as successful as their male coworkers? Unfortunately, in trying to illustrate the idea of a working woman's independence, they get a little too dreamy in the idea of family life over other opportunities.
It's a nice film, too, that explores the cut-throat corporate world and the issues that working women are confronted with, despite the fact that it gets a little too cutesy at points. It also forces people to ask how far are they willing to go just for the simple pleasures of making money? Watts spent all of her time at work, and even without a family, she hardly had a normal relationship with her equally corporate boyfriend. It was so awkward and detached. But, when she moved out to Vermont and started giving more attention to the things that mattered (i.e. Elizabeth), her manner of relationship changed, having a real relationship with the local vet.
It's something like in that Ron Howard movie, 'Gung Ho,' where Gedde Wantabe's Japanese character learns from his American employees that the Japanese work ethic of "what is good for the company" ignores things that are more important to a person's life such as family and friends. He notes that the water cooler conversations don't go much beyond whatever situation arises at work. The quiet Japanese man that worked at the plant at the end, happily, but briskly, injects into the conversation that his wife had a baby girl. Something he did not know of him before, but was happy to have made a breakthrough and hear something other than anything related to the company. Well, Baby Boom makes these same points, which seemed particularly more important in the Age of Yuppies, the decade of corporate furor.