First Comes Love 2012
Distributed by New Day Films, 190 Route 17M, P.O. Box 1084, Harriman, NY 10926; 888-367-9154 or 845-774-7051
Produced by Nina Davenport
Directed by Nina Davenport
DVD, color, 105 min.
General Adult
Parenting, Children
Date Entered: 03/31/2014
Reviewed by Sara Parme, Digital Services Librarian, Daniel A. Reed Library, SUNY FredoniaNina Davenport is 41.5 years old, single, and “wondering if [she] should just give up on Mr. Right, at this point, and have a baby alone.” Nothing in Nina’s journey into single parenthood is off-limits. She films herself peeing on a stick. She shows the camera the results of her own pregnancy test before looking herself. The camera is present in the delivery room. She even shares camera footage of her family grieving over the casket of their mother.
First Comes Love is comprised of a collection of home videos, with Nina behind the camera asking questions, alone speaking directly to the camera, and sometimes her friends turning the camera on Nina. While Nina poses some larger questions, such as what causes a growing number of women to purposefully have babies on their own and why some people are desperate to be a parent while some are happily childless, the narrative is very Nina-specific. This is best demonstrated when Nina is interviewing a new dad. To his heartfelt, honest answer Nina responds, “Are you trying to make me feel bad? Cuz I’m kind of getting that feeling.” On reflection, she concedes, “We can table my needs for maybe about 24-48 hours then it’ll be all about me again.”
The narrative never leaves Nina’s narrow circle of close friends, her family, or her own head, all of them well-educated New Yorkers. The most interesting aspects of this story is how Nina’s decision to get pregnant affects her gay friend/sperm donor and female best friend/birth partner, who she relies on heavily, and her relationship with her unsupportive family. First Comes Love is less about the larger conversations about finding love in the 21st century or the financial, emotional, and educational reasons for the rising age of first-time mothers, and really a story about coming to terms with the family you are born with and creating the family you want.
An HBO documentary film, First Comes Love is more appropriate for public libraries and general DVD collections than for instructional or educational use.