"Let's Ruin It With Babies" is the perfect title for this cheeky and sleek modern comedy from Kestrin Pantera, about a young woman with a perfect-looking hipster life -- a sweet husband, a cool house, great friends, and a kick ass career with a pop culture creative project (an all- comers-welcomed mobile karaoke RV) that's taking off on a great trajectory. It seems like she's got it all.
But while her husband is ready to drag her across the threshold into parenthood, she's not sure she's ready to go quietly; what follows is a road-movie/romantic comedy narrative that tests the connection between a likable young married couple as they work through their major life decision across the miles through a thick haze of karaoke and her road-trip party bus responsibilities.
The rich is cinematography a perfect complement to the ever-so-hip but entirely earnest lifestyle of its characters and their emotional immersion in their karaoke project. The fact that the RVIP Lounge is a real-life mobile karaoke RV that actually exists in the world, and that the fictional couple are its real-life proprietors who filmed the movie while on the road with said project, adds generously to its charm and their chemistry -- which makes the viewer all the more eager to see what will come of the couple's conundrum.
It's nice to see a romantic comedy that begins with a married couple already very much in love, and tackles a real and relevant issue for our culture, as more women face the parenthood vs. career decision and wait longer and longer to have children, or choose not to do it at all. If there is any criticism, it's that one might wish for more of the on board karaoke experience that the characters swear "changes peoples' lives!" but this is a minor squabble; for an indie it probably would have been cost prohibitive to actually license more pop music for such scenes, and in the end, the important thread is the lead character's connection to the view of the rest of her life. The end result is a very funny and emotionally aware film about the sometimes-conflicting realities of marriage and family.
