Ricky

David and I thought the movie Ricky was an allegory, but neither of us were sure what about.

In the movie, a woman’s seemingly normal baby sprouts wings. Yes, wings. She meets a guy at work, they have a baby, and the baby grows wings. Most new parents aren’t likely to face such a predicament but we can all relate to trying to create a normal life for a child who’s not normal.

Ricky’s mom loves her kids but she’s an outrageously irresponsible parent—the kind of mom that real-life moms would love to judge. She oversleeps in the morning and has to be woken up by her seven-year-old daughter. In another scene, she’s hooking up in the unisex bathroom at work with a coworker whom she just met. Flash forward a couple of months and she’s leaving her winged baby unattached and unattended in a shopping cart in a crowded hypermarket. And I won’t even discuss that press conference scene with the baby attached to a string.

Throughout the film, I got the impression that no good could come from such parental irresponsibility. Perhaps this was one of those reap-what-you-sew messages aimed at bad parents: hook up in the bathroom at a chemical factory and your baby will sprout wings.