As intimate as a documentary but with the sharply drawn characters and humor of drama, "Single Mother By Choice” deftly makes universal the experience of pregnancy — specifically, pregnancy during the first wave of the COVID pandemic.
Selina Ringel who cowrote the script with director Dan Levy Dagerman stars as Eva Garcia, an overachieving, thirty something talent manager in Los Angeles. After the trauma of a miscarriage that opens the film, Eva decides she doesn’t want to delay motherhood any longer. Single but supremely self sufficient, she is inseminated via sperm donor. Her roommate and best friend Skye (Brittany S. Hall) is eager to provide help and support but Eva insists on going it alone.
Ringel captures a successful, driven young woman with self-described OCD and sharp edges. Eva can be rude and selfish but gradually the film reveals the source: she was raised by a flawed single mom (Vanessa Angel) and an absent dad (voiced by Alfredo Ringel). It’s refreshing to have a character who speaks fluent Spanish and touts her Latinx roots as she tries to land a client in one comical scene when Eva fights morning sickness in a pitch meeting.
The film unfolds month by month during Eva’s pregnancy. By spring, reports of the corona virus send Eva’s well ordered life into a tailspin. She punches elevator buttons with her elbow and wipes down delivered groceries and engages in a heartfelt conversation with her mother that’s made more poignant when they stand apart and can’t even indulge in the expected hug.
The film made great use of reliance on Zoom as Eva virtually visits with colleagues, her doctor (Anna Campbell) and with Skye after Skye decides to wait out COVID at the Florida home of her new girlfriend. The tension increases as lockdown shutdown affects Eva’s business far more than her pregnancy does. She sells her designer bags and shoes on Ebay before she’s forced to take a job assisting a high powered producer (Christy Romano, playing herself) — a humbling experience for this self starter.
Without heavy-handedness, the film conveys the COVID-wrought isolation, uncertainty, absurdity and the disruption of relationships and livelihoods while also depicting Eva’s acceptance of her own vulnerability and what matters most. This is a pandemic movie that’s timely now and that will remain relevant and relatable for years to come.
