Look Who’s Talking is a drama I made about the plight of single mothers everywhere. It’s hard enough to shove a baby out of your action, but these women get up the next morning and go to work, so they can get up in the middle of the night to feed those fuckers. Breastmilk ain’t cheap. There’s pretty much no chance for happiness. The idea of falling in love with Prince Charming is nothing more than an annoying distraction, a fairy tale in a world all too real. Just ask Rebecca Howe.
Rebecca wasn’t looking for a baby, but her sleazy cigar-chompin’ boss gave her one anyway. He’s married of course. They all are, right ladies? As she gets fatter, his promises to leave his wife begin to sound less Obama and more McCain. And this is all in the first WEEK! Rebecca ain’t no fool. She knows what’s going on with this guy and acknowledges the tough decision she has to make: Citizen Ruth, Juno, or Look Who’s Talking? Since she’s not a communist, she chooses Look Who’s Talking. She’s gonna have the baby. Good for her!
As her pregnancy progresses, I though it’d be fun to show what was going on in the womb as the baby grows. This invites the audience to wonder, “If that baby could think, what would it think?” There was even discussion about having an actor actually overdub dialog from the baby’s point of view. They wanted Bruce Willis. I wanted Danny Aiello. We agreed to disagree, and the idea was aborted.
On Rebecca’s end, there is a lot of barfing and eating, while snapping at co-workers and clients. As she gives her entire body to this parasite, she increasingly starves herself from the rest of the world. This information is delivered by a montage set to “Walking on Sunshine.” In fact, every montage in this movie is set to “Walking on Sunshine” because “Walking on Sunshine” is an irony way of saying “Suffering in Hell.”
It’s only a matter of time (5 1/2 months) before the baby is ejected from Rebecca’s body. The delivery doesn’t go well, so the doctors call for an emergency C-section. Unfortunately, Rebecca’s body is especially weird, and when the C-section doesn’t cut it, they resort to the legendary “Plus-sign-section.” When that also fails, they call in Dr. Giggles and go full-on asterisk. She also projectile poops. Embarrassing!
Before the stitches can actually be stitched, she is home alone with her baby. “At least the hard part’s over,” she thinks. Wrong! As it turns out, babies are annoying, and Rebecca doesn’t sleep for three months. She is forced to take the baby to work with her because she can’t afford a daycare (and even if she could they all have an 18 year waiting list). Whenever she tries to do her accountant work, the baby swings onto the table and barfs on her papers. Oh, and the modesty she used to pride herself on is gone too because the baby needs hippie milk every five-out-of-ten minutes a day. They can’t fire her from her job because they heard once that it’s illegal to do that. Instead they stage a mugging which strategically busts the math bones in her hand. She is demoted to janitor. Whoops! Math bones are the same as sweep bones. Now they can finally fire her. America! Love it or run for your life.
Just when things couldn’t get any worse, she finds a false ray of hope. While in line at the unemployment office (where she is told they do not help single mothers–that’s called Welfare) she runs into professional freeloader Tony Monero, played by John Travolta, star of Battlefield Galactica. Tony offers her a ride home in his cab, follows her up to her apartment, watches her tv, and occasionally lies about how pretty she looks. With this tiny bit of encouragement, Rebecca falls in love. The baby doesn’t approve. If we could hear him think, he’d probably have some pretty hilarious views on Mr. Tony Monero. We can’t though.
For all his rancid Buttafuoco-ness, Monero has his charms around the house. For instance, anytime they get hungry, he knows how to pull a head of lettuce out of a McDonald’s dumpster. Not only that, but he knows many great ways to kill rats that don’t spoil them for eating. Plus, he can steal cable, water, gas, and electricity from the neighbors. Rebecca gets to have sex again for the first time since her kid was conceived. The fact that it’s the worst sex she’s ever had doesn’t distract her from appreciating the companionship, belly button-shaped penis and all.
Problems arise when Tony’s bookies get wise to where he’s staying. They kidnap the baby and threaten to kill if Tony does not bring $50,000 dollars to their respectable business front, an old folks home.
Rebecca is fond of her man, but her priorities are as a mother. While he bugs her about coming up with $50,000 dollars, she feeds him sleeping pills, ties him up, drives to the old folks home, and exchanges him for her son. She leaves safely with her kid. Tony tries to sweet talk his way out of the predicament, but they shoot him in the mouth. “Look who’s talking now,” one of them says.
Rebecca returns home to find her apartment on fire thanks to Tony’s “Iron the Poptart” bullshit. Now they are homeless and without any kind of income. She kneels in the wet street and, arms reaching towards heaven, wails like she’s never wailed before. Her baby doesn’t know what’s going on but imitates her anyway. It’s very cute. Kids are cute.