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Knocked Up

Synopsis

Ben Stone (played by the 40 Year Old Virgin's Seth Rogen) is a slacker loser who gets Katherine Heigl's character pregnant in a one-night-stand. She decides to keep it, which forces Ben to grow up and take some responsibility.

What I Thought

I've gotta tell you, I've been dragging my feet writing this review. Primarily for personal reasons (my beautiful cat passed away the week before) but also for political ones. There are several problems I have with this movie:

1) I really don't like the ease in which the condom option was discarded in the one-night stand. Of all the things in this movie, this was the most irresponsible thing to portray. There could have been other ways she could have gotten pregnant (the condom broke, for example), but casually discarding the prophylactic carries an extremely dangerous message.

2) Whether you're pro- or anti-choice, there wasn't a real discussion of realistic options in an honest way. In fact, a minor discussion between the woman and her mother descended into an awful anti-choice stereotype of a callous pro choice person talking about getting the procedure now and have a "real baby" later. No real pro-choice person talks so dismissively about such an important decision.

Given the above exceptions, the movie was quite funny. Just like in 40 Year Old Virgin, the comedy is raunchy and dirty but in a gentle way. Everyone is likable, and Seth Rogen comes off great. He's the real heart of this movie (and how did he manage to appear YOUNGER and thinner and more likable than the slightly weird macho guy from Virgin?).

The rest of the cast was nice too. Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann (playing brother-in-law and sister) are fantastic together and wrap up the love, fun, despair, and compromise of any marriage. Rudd's scenes of despondency are hilarious but then when you see him back with his wife, it's so sweet. And Mann is awesome as a controlling, slightly off-her-rocker wife. You could have cut the pregnant woman out of the whole movie (what was her name again) and just had a blast with Rogan, Rudd, and Mann.

Oh, and let's not forget Stone's stoner slacker roommates, who are also hilarious.

In the end, the movie made me laugh (no easy feat considering my emotional state). I gotta say that even with the negatives, the movie did a good job of being funny and sweet. While not as laugh-out-loud funny as Virgin, this movie too shows a warm heart and dirty mouth.

 

All photos and text copyright Ryszard Kilarski, unless otherwise noted. Clip art, drawings, paintings are either free domain or copyrighted by the artists.