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| American Baby |
A small independent film elevated by a phenomenal central performance, American Baby recently screened at the Austin Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Narrative Feature. It follows Oli, a 15-year-old girl who has shocked her small Texan town by getting pregnant – and, still more controversially, by refusing to be ashamed of it. Raised with no sex education, pressured by friends to hook up with a boy at a party, told that she’ll go to Hell if she has an abortion and yet treated like a pariah when she decides to keep the baby, she’s caught in a web of social rules that are only now revealing themselves to her. It’s an abrupt coming of age during which she comes to see the community she’s grown up in in a whole new way.
The film is directed by Ellen Rodnianski and stars Abigail Pniowsky, a fresh new talent who really takes it to a different level. When I saw her work, I knew I had to speak to them both, and was grateful that we were able to get it set up.
“I started to think about this story when Roe was overturned in June 2022,” says Ellen. “I immediately started writing the script with a screenwriter I had worked with before on a short film about a pregnant teenager. I had never intended to make a feature out of that short. In fact, that short was set in Russia. I don't really see this movie as an adaptation, but it's the same topic. And yeah, we wrote the script, and then a year later were shooting it. And I guess Abby should tell you how she came into it.”
Abigail smiles. There’s a slight shyness about her – she’s clearly not used to giving interviews – but she knows what she wants to say.
“I was at the national dance competition, and my mom pulled me out of class. She was like, ‘This director wants to meet with you. Come read the script really quick.’ And so I ran out of class, I read the script, and then I was meeting with Ellen. I can't remember if it was that day or the next day, but then I ended up doing an audition, and that's how it happened. It was so awesome.
“I think that I just connected with it. And obviously when you connect more with the character, you are able to play them more realistically. That was probably a big part in it.”
“Something about Abby was just so organic,” says Ellen. “Our meeting happened over Zoom. At the time, I had looked at a lot of girls – originally we looked locally in Texas because were shooting in Austin – and I just was not clicking. I saw a lot of great girls, but there needs to be something a little bit, I don't know. You can't really explain this. Like, on a physical level, click. And with Abby just hopping on that call, it was immediately apparent to me. And then she auditioned and it was a done deal from there.”
It's very raw and open performance, and that kind of thing can be difficult to step back from. I ask Abigail how she handled it.
“It took a lot of emotional energy,” she says. “With these kinds of roles, it is hard to separate yourself from your character. Especially because I resonated with Oli so much. I really did feel like her. But when I did step back from it and it was the end of the day, I was tired and I was going home, it was kind of with a feeling of appreciation. I felt like I had met a new person, and that person was Oli. It was also a very quick shoot, so there was not a lot of time to process. But in my moments alone, I did. I was alone with a new appreciation for the scripts and Oli and everything. And after filming, it was like I became a new kind of person because I took her spirit with me.”
Ellen was aware of the vulnerability that can come with this kind of performance, and for any teenager on set.
“I was so worried about Abby,” she says. “Abby had her parents on set. The garage scene was honestly my greatest fear going into this movie. We had two intimacy coordinators, one in Texas and one guiding us from LA, because we were doing a lot of things that were challenging emotionally, and just on so many levels.
“Early on in our conversations, I tried to connect with Abby via music. Remember I asked you to do that playlist?” she prompts her, and Abigail nods. “I just think music as a teenager is just such a great way to understand emotions better, and so I looked at Oli musically at first. What would she be daydreaming to? You know, because that's really what you do to music. You daydream about what you want your life to look like. And that was like, an emotional foundation that we built early on.”
“Yeah, definitely,” Abigail agrees.
I put it to her that with the garage scene, it wouldn't really matter so much if it was a little bit awkward having people around, because it's such an awkward scene anyway. She’s supposed to be feeling like that. She agrees.
“You just have to remember that there are people around you, but also forget. Like, yes, for the garage scene, but also really, any other scene that you're filming. Even if you're supposed to be alone with yourself in the scene, obviously there's going to be people standing around you. People are right up in your face. But it really is just a mental thing.”
“We did have a closed set. There were very few people there.” Ellen adds.
We talk about casting, and the role of Toby, the father of Oli’s baby.
“Elisha [Henig] was actually someone I looked at very early on,” she says. “But originally, we were thinking maybe we'd find someone locally. It would make sense. But then ultimately we brought him on because he had just done a movie with one of my producers, so we sent him the script, he auditioned and he killed it. And he and Abby met.”
“I think the garage scene was one of our first scenes together,” says Abigail. “And you know, we did make each other playlists as well.
“A big, big thing on set was music. That was kind of how we connected. We just spoke a lot, I guess. And I think that when you're doing that sort of scene with someone, the chemistry, real or not, it's just like – there's sort of an agreement and an acknowledgement between two people on set. Like, ‘Okay, this is our relationship now. This is what we're doing.’ And everything came naturally after that.”
We talk about the story and the issues at the heart of it.
“To me, it's so peculiar when you have no sexual education, or very strict abortion laws,” says Ellen. “So on the one hand, young people are told to not have sex. And then on the other hand there, it's part of our biology that people do want to, and young people will have sex. And so they're left without a choice. I think there's a hypocrisy innate to a lack of education. People will do what they want to do. There's been generations of this. Plus, in the internet era, it is sort of silly to not have a system where you just teach what can happen.
“You know, if it's true that you believe that abortion is a sin, perhaps you should put on a condom. Because I grew up in Europe, I had sex ed in third grade. To me it was always very striking that I was told everything way before I wanted to know any of it, but I knew it, you know.”
In the film, Oli also experiences pressure to have sex, from her peers, so she’s caught between these different forces. I mention her mother and her sympathy for Oli’s situation – is part of that rooted in guilt because she hasn't stepped in at any point to provide education?
“I think so. I think the mother is in some ways a victim of her circumstance. She's a immigrant, she wants to blend into the community.
“I think the film should speaks to teenagers first and foremost. That's why it was so important for me to cast someone that was actually 15. You know, there are so many movies where 23-year-olds play teenagers and it just doesn't feel the same. It does not have the same effect. It's like intellectualising something.”
“Being a teen, especially in our day and age, there is the wanting to be mature and the pressure of the people around you acting all grown up and thinking they know everything,” says Abigail. “And also the shame that comes with actually acting like a grown up when you aren't one. I think that Oli definitely felt that and I understand. I'm sure plenty of 13-year-old girls understand that as well. Because when you are surrounded by people who are acting a certain way, you want to be like them. You want to have experiences to share with your friends.”
We see Oli grow up over the course of the film, in a lot of ways, but is she also coming to see her community in a different light?
“Yes, for sure. I mean, the hypocrisy of it all. Everybody's doing it but nobody's talking about it until one person is exposed. And that's when she understands that she didn't really want to be like these people at all. It's too late for her to see that without other consequences. That's definitely a big point of her experience, and I think that is what forced her to mature and kind of close herself off.”
Parts of the film are tough to watch, but it does extend some hope.
“I think it definitely shows that you can find people who will support you no matter what,” says Abigail. “And you can be in a place where you can seek out good things for yourself, even if you feel like all hope is lost. She found things that would help her and people that would help her in some of her darkest moments. I hope that I can show people that it's not too late for anyone.
“I'm really glad that people are connecting with it. That's what I want to be able to do. I want to be an actress so I can give people an outlet, something to watch, to relate to, and understanding. I'm glad that's happening, and I hope that it continues to happen.”
