Directed by:
Judd ApatowScreenplay:
Judd ApatowCinematography:
Eric Alan EdwardsComposer:
Joe HenryCast:
Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl, Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Jason Segel, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Martin Starr, Charlyne Yi, Iris Apatow, Maude Apatow, Joanna Kerns (more)VOD (4)
Plots(1)
Alison Scott is an up-and-coming entertainment journalist whose 24-year-old life is on the fast track. But it gets seriously derailed when a drunken one-nighter with slacker Ben Stone results in an unwanted pregnancy. Faced with the prospect of going it alone or getting to know the baby's father, Alison decides to give the lovable doof a chance. An overgrown kid who has no desire to settle down, Ben learns that he has a big decision to make with his kid's mom-to-be: will he hit the road or stay in the picture! Courting a woman you've just knocked up, however, proves to be a little difficult when the two try their hands at dating. As they discover more about one another, it becomes painfully obvious that they’re not the soul mates they'd hoped they might be. With Alison's harried sister Debbie and hen-pecked brother-in-law Pete the only parenting role models the young lovers have, things get even more confusing. Should they raise the baby together? What makes a happy lifetime partnership after all? A couple of drinks and a wild night later, they've got nine confusing months to figure it out. (Universal Pictures US)
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Reviews (9)
Ambitious, but at the same time objectionable in its boldness. It can be overlooked that a beautiful girl gets together with an unknown unappealing weirdo, but not the development of their relationship. Confessions come in a very forceful way and the comical situations do not at all correspond to the current mood. In addition, the only character that one can identify with is the knocked-up Alison. The main hero is a boorish ignoramus, who can ruin everything and still has a sense of victory. The script doesn't make it any easier for him at all, because he is given a gang of unfunny druggies as friends, who only leer and make hopeless remarks. I'll show mercy for Judd Apatow mostly because I managed to endure this sweaty endeavor for more than two hours, for the occasional chuckles (Robert De Niro's shoes), and for the beautiful Katherine Heigl.
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A comedy should entertain and I have no choice but to say that I didn't laugh once during the whole two hours - in fact, I didn't even get the feeling that I should be laughing. Whenever a situation that seemed like humor was approaching, it was usually ruined by some vulgarity, stupidity, or the scriptwriter's failure. This film clearly targets a younger audience in their teenage years, which is the reason for the naivety, insincerity of the storytelling, and cheaper humor. It remains true that the film can convey some timeless differences between the female and male perspectives on the world and relationships, but a film like Barefoot in the Park can sell romance and immaturity of relationships twice as effectively with infinitely greater elegance and style, and any episode of The Simpsons can reveal the struggles of parenthood and marriage in a lot funnier and more cultivated way. The main female characters, led by Katherine Heigl, are a good aspect of the film, as well as the awareness that American studios produce infinitely dumber and more poorly crafted films in the same genre. Overall impression: 40%.
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The empathetic teddy bear from Zack and Miri Make a Porno and the pretty girl from Grey's Anatomy together in an enjoyable, coarse-grained comedy about conception and the website Mr. Skin. There's nothing like finding out before sex that you're more beautiful than your counterpart.
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What if this man got you pregnant? Although Knocked Up doesn’t offend me in any way, and in its genre I even liked it, I am rather horrified that this type of routineer humor might well dictate the trend across the Pond for the next few years. To start with, Apatow isn’t Kevin Smith. Apatow also tries to make pop-culture references and “coolly crude" talk almost anywhere, but where Smith uses these ingredients to impart something or at least for entertainment, Apatow throws out random references to a movie/TV show/game or the word “fuck" and carries on with something else. Nothing comes of them, they lead nowhere and the movie would give exactly the same impression even without them. Luckily Knocked Up isn’t purely a comedy. Basically a classic romantic genre piece where, to lighten things up, we have a couple of characters who stir up the otherwise rather serious waters. The cast is pleasant and so in the end what harms the picture most is the over-ambitious length. Some scenes are just crying out to be cut. An ideal movie for a date. Both of you will find something you like about it, you’ll have fun and you’ll have enough time to devote to other activities without really missing anything happening on the screen.
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A lot of directorial ideas and screenwriting gimmicks (interviews with celebrities, parodies of actors) and an excellent main duo (in terms of acting) in a very unconventional film with loads of realistically sounding vulgarities. These are the things that will surprise, if not charm you. But there are also things that are not so good. First and foremost, the immensely long runtime is bothersome considering the genre, and when the director wants to play at a realistic comedy, he should realise that a classy lady working for television, who makes decent money, would not even look at a disgusting sleazy loser like Seth Rogen in a bar. The way their relationship develops is ridiculous, and although the personal opinion and attitude of each viewer a big role in it, it didn't strike me as a particularly realistic story that could happen to anyone. Not to mention the hasty transformation from a slacker to a role model (Ben decides to take his first job and in the next shot he's already buying his own apartment and furniture...). It's a different and pleasantly uninhibited comedy, but the plot twists could use some work.
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