A problem has emerged for the much-discussed baby-boom generation: many of them don’t feel grown up. In She’s Having a Baby, writer-director John Hughes takes a fresh and funny look at this phenomenon, providing keen insights along the way into the confusing and challenging process of becoming an adult.
Just before Jake Briggs (Kevin Bacon) marries his high school sweetheart (Elizabeth McGovern), his grandmother says, “People don’t mature anymore. They stay jackasses all their lives.” After floundering at several false starts, Jack lands a job at an advertising agency. Since that work isn’t very satisfying, he spends his evenings laboring over a novel. His marriage is okay, but sexual fantasies still romp through his mind. He feels like an outsider around his suburban neighbors, but when his best friend (Alec Baldwin), who is living an adventurous life in New York City, criticizes him for his conventional existence, he feels depressed.
Jake is not ready to be an adult. In the voice-over narration, he states: “The disease was maturity, and it was happening faster than I thought. In the back of my mind, I thought I might be the mythical one, the true Peter Pan. I was sorely mistaken.” Faced with parenthood in the film’s finale, however, he surprises us.