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EUR FILM REVIEW: Knocked Up
One-Night Stand Leads to Unplanned Pregnancy in Battle-of-the-Sexes Comedy
*Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl) and Ben Stone (Seth Rogen) are polar opposites with nothing in common other than being twenty-somethings living in Los Angeles.
She’s an ambitious, aspiring journalist who just landed her big break as an on-air reporter for the E! Television Network. He, on the other hand, is an unemployed underachiever who’s sharing a bachelor pad with four equally-immature couch potatoes intent on delaying the onset of adulthood.
Ben and his roommates typically hang out in their living room in a weed-induced haze, making grandiose plans which never materialize to launch a raunchy website called Flesh of the Stars. Straitlaced Alison, by contrast, is on the fast track to the top of the showbiz ladder. Well, she is at least until the fateful moment that a flirtatious, curly-headed stranger approaches her in a pickup bar.
She isn’t actually into the singles scene, and is only in the club to celebrate her promotion with her big sister, Debbie (Leslie Mann), a jaded housewife stuck in a bad marriage. But that doesn’t discourage Ben from inviting himself to join them and trying to lower Alison’s resistance by plying her with beer. At the end of the evening, against her better judgment, she invites him back to her apartment, where she compounds that mistake by assuming a compromising position without first making sure he’s using protection.
The next morning, as their hangovers wear off, they instantly grate on each others nerves, making it abundantly clear that their ill-advised abandon had been the result of an alcohol-fueled, temporary insanity. So, they part company never expecting to set eyes on one another again.
Eight weeks later, however, after Alison has missed a couple of periods, she determines that she’s expecting and tracks down her sperm donor to let him know he’s going to be a daddy. Needless to say, Ben, a sleazy slacker who would rather be chasing his next conquest than changing diapers, takes the news of his impending fatherhood very badly.
This contentious premise provides plenty of opportunities not only for further acrimony but also sows the seeds for potential post-coital romance in Knocked Up, a coarse yet curiously charming battle-of-the-sexes comedy written and directed by Judd Apatow (The 40 Year-Old Virgin). With this, just his second feature film, Apatow establishes himself as a master of the delicate art of offsetting lowbrow humor with enough convincingly tenderhearted moments to produce a picture with universal appeal.
For fans of bodily function humor will undoubtedly relish all the bawdy boys’ behavior back in Ben’s flat, as well as shocking sight gags involving pregnant Alison barfing and giving birth. Meanwhile, audience members inclined towards more sophisticated fare will undoubtedly appreciate the badinage between her and Ben as she desperately endeavors to make him over into marriage material before the arrival of their bouncing bundle of joy.
The film relies heavily on a parallel subplot involving the strained marriage of the ever-vigilant Debbie and her emotionally-exasperated spouse, Pete (Paul Rudd). Debbie suspects him of cheating on her, and cries on Alison’s shoulder while enlisting her assistance in her effort to catch him in the act. The females’ spying hijinks are simultaneously offset by Pete’s periodic male-bonding opportunities with commitment-phobic Ben, who’s understandably reluctant to take advice about walking down the aisle from a
Knocked Up adds up to a hilarious family values flick which manages to convince you that it’s possible to transform a misogynist into a doting father on the guilt of an unplanned pregnancy. Sometimes, it’s fun to pretend, and this just happens to be an excellent example of one of those occasions.
Excellent (4 stars)
Rated R for premarital sexuality, coarse humor, frontal nudity, drug and alcohol abuse, profanity and mature themes.
Running time: 129 minutes
Studio: Universal Pictures
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