It’s also important to remember that this is a fantasy, not a guidebook for making serious life decisions. If anything, the movie is a reminder that anyone who believes in a woman’s fundamental right to choose also needs to respect whatever choice she makes.

It’s also possible that anti-abortion proselytizers could seize on Look Both Ways to make the point that having the child is always the best way, the only way-but that’s not how the filmmakers present Natalie’s decision. There’s no denying the relative cushiness of her particular single-mom life. We see her working briefly as a barista, but once the baby comes, that job seems to go out the window.

For one thing, it’s impossible to ignore the reality that mom-Natalie gets to raise her child in a beautiful house with doting, helpful grandparents on call whenever necessary. (As played by Ramirez, this character has an exceptionally long fuse.) Yet there’s not much dramatic tension in Look Both Ways.

Reinhart is an effortlessly appealing performer, though she’s not all sunshine: she can summon an understated moody sharpness when she needs to, particularly in her mom-Natalie scenes, where Jake is usually the one on the receiving end of her mini-tirades. The news, to this perhaps overconfident early-twenty-something, is crushing. Then Natalie hits a bump in the road: Lucy informs her that her drawings are derivative, that she needs to find her own style. On the way to getting that job, she meets a cute guy, Jake (David Corenswet), and after becoming friends, they embark on a tentative but promising romantic relationship. Los Angeles Natalie lands, early on, what she thinks will be her dream job: working as an assistant to the filmmaker she most admires, Lucy (Nia Long), your classic demanding-but-fair boss. The point isn’t to degrade one choice and celebrate the other, but to show how human beings often find happiness exactly in the place they’re not looking. Written by April Prosser and directed by Wanuri Kahiu, the film toggles between the Natalies of these two very different worlds, one climbing the career ladder rung by shaky rung, the other stuck at home with an infant she is, at first, not sure what to do with. But Look Both Ways has a mild sweetness that makes it go down easy. A filmmaker can do a lot with this Sliding Doors-style idea there’s also plenty that could send it careering off the rails.

Lili reinhart book