Jeremy Hersh’s debut feature has enough hooks and issues to fuel a dozen dinner-party conversations. It takes a compelling ‘what if?’ dilemma and then sensitively explores the subsequent hot-button topics with insight and clarity. Hersh is a playwright and there is a theatrical quality to the proceedings — it also takes a while to get going — but once the dramatic payload drops it becomes compulsive viewing, anchored by a terrific turn by The Good Fight’s Jasmine Batchelor.
Batchelor is Jess, an African-American Brooklynite with a sunny disposition and a lot going on (that Hersh takes his sweet time in sketching). She is distracted in her job as a web designer for a non-profit organisation and is in a kinda-sorta relationship with Nate (Brandon Micheal Hall) that she is working to keep vague. The one thing she is certain about is being the surrogate and egg donor for her best friends, married couple Josh (Chris Perfetti) and Aaron (Sullivan Jones). Twelve weeks into the pregnancy, a test reveals that the child will most likely be born with Down’s Syndrome. While Josh and Aaro remain reticent, Jess throws herself into learning about Down’s, visiting dedicated schools and befriending parents, in particular Bridget (Brooke Bloom), whose son Leon (Leon Lewis) is still a child.
The film’s ace in the hole is Jasmine Batchelor, who superbly maps out a journey from can-do optimism to righteous fury.
It’s now, without straying into spoilers, that the story blows up, Hersh’s sharp, analytical writing raising pertinent questions around notions of choice, the rights of unborn children, privilege and eugenics. At this point, The Surrogate amps up into a series of compelling, well-written arguments that feel organic and rarely just point-making (the film only has one duff note — a moment where Jess charges into a restaurant and berates them for their lack of disability access, which feels forced).
While Perfetti and Jones do good work as the uncertain new parents-to-be, never descending into gay-best-friend stereotypes, the film’s ace in the hole is Batchelor, who superbly maps out a journey from can-do optimism to righteous fury. Her scenes with Bloom spark, and there is a terrific argument with Jess’ mother Karen (Tonya Pinkins) who argues that, as a young African-American woman with “a master’s degree from Columbia”, Jess has as much responsibility to herself and her potential as to any unborn child. It’s this sense of looking at all sides of the debate that marks out Hersh’s writing. If his filmmaking is a little prosaic, his sense of people and of what shapes their lives bodes well for the future.