Review

Review Date: 3-June-07
Spoiler Rating: High
Juju Judgment: Junk

Knocked Up (2007)

What is the deal with Judd Apatow? Is he like the hip pastor who aims to increase his flock by speaking to kids in their own lingo? His first hit "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" developed a bad case of family values at the end and asked us to believe that a middle-aged man would wait weeks to get married before enjoying his first sexual experience with the love of his life. Now his new flick "Knocked Up" exceeds the limit of how much old-fashioned propriety one can rationally buy. The movie purports to be a raunchy sex comedy and parades its share of tits and flatulence, but at heart it's fatally square. And long. And poorly written. And depressing.

The shaky premise is that a pretty blonde named Allison (Katherine Heigl) gets promoted to a high-profile job as a celebrity reporter and celebrates by having a drunken one-night stand with a pudgy slacker named Ben (Seth Rogen). Eight weeks later, she learns that she's pregnant from the encounter and contacts Ben to give him the news. There she is, all shiny and sophisticated, occupying her own wing of a mansion belonging to her sister and brother-in-law (Leslie Mann and Paul Rudd); there he is, 23 and never employed, living with a herd of man-boys wedded to soft-core porn and bongs. Woe to the unborn child.

Allison decides against abortion and, for some reason unfathomable to me, attempts to date Ben despite their egregious non-compatibility. If Apatow managed to convey some sense of their relationship blooming, perhaps what follows wouldn't be so distasteful. But Ben and Allison are merely shown kissing, occasionally screwing, and understandably arguing. The script and the bland actors fail to show why these two people would entertain any thought of forming a family. And as if it weren't yucky enough to imagine them united by mistake and poisoning their child's life by attempting an impossible partnership, the movie stops to gawk at the problems between Allison's sister and her husband. These too are poorly defined, and they paint the whole idea of marriage and parenting as a nightmare. A nightmare we are apparently supposed to approve.

"Knocked Up" drags on for what feels like a full nine months, trying to wring humor from Ben and his buddies (they're stoned and kooky: we got it the first time) while feebly foreshadowing the happy ending. But there is nothing happy about these characters, each of whom is a loser in his or her own way. I don't care what the studio says or if Apatow delivers a few laughs. Having a baby arrive in these people's midst makes the picture a stone cold tragedy.

Copyright © 2007 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.