Friends with Kids (2012)
Rated R
Starring: Adam Scott, Jennifer Westfeldt, Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Chris O’Dowd, Megan Fox, Edward Burns
Directed by: Jennifer Westfeldt
Tagline: Love. Happiness. Kids. Pick Two.
Running time: 107 Minutes
Blu-ray
Quick summary (from IMDB): Two best friends decide to have a child together while keeping their relationship platonic, so they can avoid the toll kids can take on a romantic relationships.
The plot of all of these movies is predictable: Two people commit to their plan, one of them develops feelings, but the other rejects them, only to realize, seemingly too late, that they do share feelings, and in the end the end up together. It’s kind of a boring plot, and been done to death with only slight changes into the setting, story to make them different enough.
That being said, Friends with Kids was actually pretty good, for the most part. The cast was solid, though more suited for a full blown comedy than the half comedy/half drama this ended up being. A lot has been made of the fact that four members of the cast (Wiig, Hamm, Rudolph and O’Dowd) were all also in Bridesmaids, which is cool. I get the feeling that they are all friends, and given that this is an indie movie made by Westfeldt, she and Hamm (her partner) recruited a bunch of their friends to save on costs. It worked out for them, as they have some talented friends.
Adam Scott continues to impress me in just about everything he’s in. Party Down and Parks & Rec are really good, in part because of his involvement. He’s a funny guy, with some great delivery, and he showed some more dramatic acting ability here that I wasn’t really expecting. Jennifer Westfeldt, on the other hand, is someone I’ve never heard of, and she put a lot of weight on her own shoulders, as she wrote, directed and starred in the movie. She was pretty good, overall. Probably could have been a little better, but she didn’t ruin the movie. Jon Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph and Chris O’Dowd were all good, as they usually are, though not nearly as funny as they were in Bridesmaids, but that was a pure comedy. The normally not good Megan Fox actually wasn’t terrible. She’s still not a good actress, but she didn’t bring the movie down any.
As I said in the previous paragraph, the movie was good, for the most part. There were a couple of things that kept the movie from being really good. First off, married couples with children were made out to be terribly miserable and awful people. The pairings of Rudolph and O’Dowd and Wiig and Hamm were made to be so unhappy and boring, which made it seem like being married with kids is the worst thing you can ever do, which is just not true. Secondly, the ending left a lot to be desired. If you’ve seen any romantic comedies, you already know how it’s going to end, so I don’t think I’m spoiling anything, but the way Scott and Westfeldt’s characters end up together is a little ridiculous, with awkward and unnatural dialogue that felt completely out of place. They could have gone any number of other directions that would have made the ending a lot better overall.
3.5 out of 5 stars
Trailer:
Source:
http://www.betterthanavatar.com/2012/07/review-friends-with-kids-2012.html