Vague Visages’ American Baby review contains minor spoilers. Ellen Rodnianski’s 2025 movie features Abigail Pniowsky, Elisha Henig and Claire Capek. Check out the VV home page for more film criticism, movie reviews and film essays.

To be “othered” by a small town community is to be freed from stale traditions and lazy expectations. In Ellen Rodniansky’s mostly rock-solid feature debut American Baby, 15-year-old Oli (Abigail Pniowsky) grows up quickly in Elgin, Texas after being impregnated by a bullied boy named Toby (Elisha Henig). She aims to please her religious mother (Janel Koloski as a Ukrainian immigrant named Tammy) but must also process what goes unsaid in her community, such as leering/thirsty men and nosey female churchgoers. In typical coming-of-age flicks about sensitive topics, such as teenage pregnancy, directors tend to focus heavily on melodrama and dialogue. With American Baby, however, Rodnianski and cinematographer David Khayznikov utilize motion visuals to depict the focal community as a supporting character, one that’s constantly moving the goalpost as young Oli searches for minor victories.

American Baby shifts timelines to examine Oli’s perspective, both before and after her pregnancy. The first act also suggests that a female classmate’s suicide via train keeps the protagonist in a constant state of unease. As for Toby, he also gets “othered” by locals via repeated suggestions that he’s gay. And when the boy impregnates Oli — who lives in a trailer park with her mother — his parents quickly remove him from the community. Philosophically, Rodnianski and co-writer Tanya Leonova deconstruct the consequences of spontaneous teenage actions and the mental strength needed to remove oneself from a bad situation. The pregnant protagonist doesn’t have a strong male presence in her life, and her mother suggests that it’s best to just “give birth and raise the child to be a good Baptist.” During a telling mid-movie sequence, Oli screams “Get out of my body!” while intentionally harming herself. It’s a disturbing moment that at once speaks to the character’s immediate concerns and the generational trauma that was passed on from her abused mother.

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Rodniansky and her main players sometimes struggle with scene execution and flow in American Baby. Of course, this isn’t uncommon for a feature debut starring young performers, but some rough line readings and awkward movements during intense scenes devalue the overall realism. Most casual moviegoers won’t notice these little things, however, so they’ll focus more on the messaging and melodrama. On the surface, Rodnianski seems most invested in whether or not Oli will leave Elgin for good and start a new life, but the most important question, arguably, is whether the protagonist will reunite and resume a relationship with Toby. Because of this conflict, there’s not enough character development to justify some crucial final act decisions, as Rodniansky doesn’t fully explore Henig’s perspective, at least beyond the fact that he’s a bullied, Google-loving kid who impregnated a girl from the wrong side of the tracks. But even without rounded-out character development, there’s still plenty to consume in terms of how the filmmakers address the teenage experience — specifically, the agony and ecstasy of spontaneous decisions by two outcasts.

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Both Pniowsky and Henig deliver polished performances in American Baby. And there’s an interesting bad-girl-falls-for-the-nerd dynamic that allows the leads to show different sides of their characters. Oli is perceived as a bad girl but clearly has a strong moral foundation (thanks to her mother), while Toby comes across as a good boy who isn’t afraid to be naughty when the right situations arise. Conceptually, American Baby would probably be more effective as an anthology series on a streaming service, as that would allow Rodniansky to investigate social factors that affect young women and men in different parts of America. But as a feature film about life in small town Texas (near Austin), there’s a solid amount of screenplay seasoning to keep viewers thinking about the weaponization of religion and traditions against modern teenagers.

American Baby premiered at the 2025 Austin Film Festival on October 24, 2025 and won the Audience Award for Best Narrative Feature.

Q.V. Hough (@QVHough) is Vague Visages’ founding editor. Thank you for reading film criticism, movie reviews and film essays at Vague Visages.

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