Een bekroond drama over ongewenst zwangerschap met een komische ondertoon en bijzondere animatie.

De 23-jarige Rakel geniet van haar onbezorgde leven en woont samen met een vriendin. Ze tekent strips, houdt van feestjes, drank en drugs en heeft regelmatig een onenightstand. Na aandringen van haar huisgenoot doet Rakel een zwangerschapstest en blijkt ze al 6 maanden zwanger te zijn van een scharrel, terwijl ze net begint te daten met de judoleraar. Moeder worden stond niet op Rakels bucketlist en aangezien abortus geen optie meer is, moet ze gaan kiezen tussen haar oude vertrouwde leventje en de door haar omgedoopte Ninjababy, die haar steeds meer begint te kwellen wanneer hij in haar verbeelding tot leven komt.

Ninjababy is een grappig en ongepolijst Noors drama van regisseur Yngvild Sve Flikke. De film is gebaseerd op de graphic novel Fallteknik -  Valtechniek - van Inga H. Saetre, die voor de film animaties maakte waardoor Ninjababy een komisch bijpersonage wordt.

Yngvild wrote and directed dramas and documentaries on behalf of the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation for 17 years before making her debut as a feature film director with Women in Oversized Men's Shirts in 2015. The film was well received by both critics and the public. Flikke directed several episodes of the drama series Home Ground, in both season 1 and 2, and won Gullruten for best Norwegian drama series and best female and male actor in 2018. Her latest film is Ninjababy using Inga Sætre's illustrated novel 'Fallteknikk' as the starting point for the film she wanted to create, she knew she was heading in the right direction. But it was far from easy to get from conception to the birth of Ninjababy! Her films have a clear female perspective and intertwine humor with drama.

When I was working with the sound for the feature film Women in Oversized Men's Shirts, I came up with the idea of making a movie about a pregnancy. That film has a multiplot story in which one of the characters accidentally gets pregnant in her late 30s, but there was no room in the movie to thoroughly explore the mental aspects of carrying a child. I became a mother of two girls a few years earlier, and becoming a parent is a life changing experience. Being pregnant, the fact that another human is growing inside you, can be emotionally overwhelming.

I want to tell viewers that it's okay to stumble and mess up. You're going to do that many times in your life, and as long as you get back on your feet, you'll be fine. At the same time, I want to address the younger generation's fear of getting pregnant. We live in a society where getting pregnant at your most fertile age is unusual. The film is also about taking responsibility, growing up, and being able to push through any situation you find yourself in. I think a lot of pregnant women have felt the fear of becoming a mother, even those who planned for it. And in turn the feeling of care and love that develops through a pregnancy in different ways. That ambivalence, the conflicting feelings, is what I'm trying to bring out in the movie. In several instances we use the animation to describe the bodily aspect of the anxiety and uncertainty that comes with it.

The film is made for a young audience, but I'm probably subconsciously leaning a bit towards women my own age as well. Even though I mainly want to reach the younger generation, I think it's a movie that adults might also enjoy. I believe a lot of people can sympathize with feeling stuck, being in a place you don't want to be. Not truly trusting you'll be able to handle whatever life throws at you anymore, being a shitty person. And people of all ages can recognize themselves in the expectations of the outside world and how that contradicts with how you feel inside. I wanted it to be an amusing movie, but you can't overload it with gags when the main story revolves around a young girl's unwanted pregnancy. We also were extremely uncertain about how to end the film. The book ends right after childbirth, and we wanted to include more, but could never figure out how. Thankfully, I had people helping me throughout the entire process with finding the right balance between humor and the seriousness of it all.

Filmcast:  Arthur Berning, Kristine Thorp

Director: Yngvild Sve Flikke

Genre : drama

Duur : 103 min.

Datum : 1-04-2022