American Baby Review: American Pregnancy

A visual feast, American Baby from director Ellen Rodniaski tells the story of teen pregnancy in America through the eyes of a 15-year-old Texan.

Oli (Abigail Pniowsky) is a good, Christian girl. She goes to a Christian school, and other students pick on her for not wanting to have sex. When she attends a party with some classmates, and one tries to initiate intimacy with her, she pushes him away. Outside, he and his friends push her and another bullied boy, Toby (Elisha Henig), into a garage, saying that the “nun” and the gay boy would never have sex. Except he’s not gay and they like each other, so they do. Because sex education is also spotty in American educational institutions, Oli has bad information about avoiding pregnancy, so she becomes pregnant.

The rest of American Baby is about Oli’s struggle to decide what to do with her pregnancy. The film does a truly impressive job of showing that even if there are options, sometimes there really aren’t. As a 15-year-old in Texas, Oli doesn’t have an easy way to leave the state to obtain an abortion. Because of her church’s views, she is asked to leave both the congregation and the school. Toby’s parents send him away and refuse to help or allow the two of them to see each other. Every choice she is faced with is a bad one, or one that is unavailable to her.

An aspect of this movie that adds a different element is Oli’s mom, Tammy (Janel Koloski). She is a Ukrainian immigrant who left an abusive husband. The church that she and Oli attend helped her and other Ukrainian immigrants, so she feels obligated to them. That additional layer shows how religious beliefs and a need for community can get tangled up in a way that makes it difficult to extricate yourself from some of the more harmful elements.

Rather than engaging in endless dialogue and melodrama, American Baby Rodaniaski and her cinematographer, David Khayznikov, use more visual language to tell the story. We often follow Oli as she walks through her town, bearing the weight of her community’s expectations. Along with Oli, we see the passing stares, the hidden whispers, the snide comments dressed in Christian language. There is dialogue, but it is far less heavy-handed than other films of this sort.

The film is not without faults. The story starts near the end, and sometimes the non-linear format undercuts emotional moments. Knowing the outcome doesn’t always impact tension, but this isn’t quite deft enough to make that work. The opening sequence is beautiful, but it would still have been beautiful at the end of the film, allowing the way Oli comes to her decision to have more impact.

American Baby rests on the young shoulders of Abigail Pniowsky, and she is up to the task. She masterfully illustrates the range of emotions that arise when a child is in a very adult situation. She has to make decisions based on the limited knowledge she has, which has been filtered through a very specific religious and political system, leaving her ill-equipped to do so. It is a powerful, nuanced performance for which she deserves praise.

I have been in the position of an embarrassing, stigmatized pregnancy. Even as an adult, outside pressure made it difficult to know what to do. Years of religious upbringing, my own shame, and the lack of community support made it hard to know how to proceed. So often, these decisions have to be made by a child. American Baby is about Oli’s offspring, but it is also about Oli herself, an American child forced to become a mother. Because American pregnancy is something that isn’t limited to women.

American Baby was screened at the the Sarajevo Film Festival, Jerusalem Film Festival, Cucalorus Film Festival, and Austin Film Festival where it won the Audience Award for Narrative Feature.