First Comes Love

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes baby in the baby carriage. For filmmaker Nina Davenport, that old playground song didn’t go as planned. Single at age forty-one, she decides to have a baby on her own, never minding the odds stacked against her or the extra hurdles of living in New York City. Filming the whole process, she excels at candour and comedy. Think of a real-life Girls, only with more grown-up problems.

The film taps into the zeitgeist topic of how the modern family is being re-imagined in the early twenty-first century. They say it takes a village to raise a child. In Nina’s case, that village is populated by urban sophisticates who have delayed procreation for as long as possible and are late in confronting its joys and chores. Nina is unflinching at exposing her inner and outer self as a case study. She’s refreshingly frank and funny about the trials that women endure in order to get pregnant, give birth and manage the early years of parenting. After watching, you’ll want to thank your mother.

— Thom Powers, Toronto International Film Festival

Nina “Davenport fearlessly puts her dreams, doubts, swollen stomach, and disheveled life in front of the camera for our viewing pleasure and captures an unflinching, often hilarious, and unusually moving portrait of single parenthood in the 21st century.” (Orlando Sentinel)