KNOCKED UP
When "Throwing Out The Baby With The Bathwater" Is Not An
Option
The Popcorn Reel Movie Review: "Knocked Up"
By Omar P.L. Moore/June 1, 2007
Baby steps: Katherine Heigl as Allison, and Seth Rogen as Ben in Judd Apatow's
"Knocked Up", now playing in theaters across America.
(All photos: Suzanne Hanover/Universal Pictures)
printer-friendly
Judd Apatow's "Knocked Up" is a wickedly funny piece of
entertainment. Whether or not the story (also by Apatow) engages you
thoroughly is not always the first priority of the director, who
takes everything about a man's and a woman's worst fear -- an unwanted or
unexpected pregnancy -- and expands it into a referendum on male-female
relationships. Can a woman raise a child with a man who doesn't have a
job? Can a man be a father without running away from his responsibilities?
(Heck, can a man be a man if he runs away from his responsibilities?)
The answers are supplied here, but it takes the better part of over two hours to
get to them. In this and other respects, "Knocked Up" could have been much
shorter -- by at least half an hour.
As in Mr. Apatow's "The 40-Year-Old Virgin", the dialogue in "Knocked Up" is as
saucy, sexually-charged and graphically acid-tongued as anything one can think
to pack into an R-rated movie while keeping audiences laughing, and in
this regard Apatow prevails. The film, which gives a new gloss and meaning
to the film classic "Bringing Up Baby", takes its audience for a roller-coaster
ride of laughs and a few specific moments of seriousness, but by the time the
serious moments start to come the film has felt more like an ordeal than a
joyride. Perhaps that is exactly what the director was looking for: the
chance to watch and witness the main players endure and exalt in the ups, downs
and stresses that a pregnancy brings. Mr. Apatow resists a chance to
explore the other consequences of unprotected sex -- namely HIV/AIDS, which
has apparently been a dirty word in Hollywood movies for many a year now.
Granted, "Knocked Up" is a comedy, but it seems that American films have taken a
decidedly permanent vacation from even hinting at the realities of a disease in
conjunction with risky sex that continues to ravage humanity, ever since films
from the early 1990's like "Longtime Companion" and "Philadelphia" boldly stared
AIDS in the face.
With that said, meet Ben (Seth Rogen). Jobless. Loveless.
Aspiration-less. In short, he's a lazy son of a gun. He is an
illegal immigrant from Canada and has been slumming around with his down-and-out
pals in Southern California, working on their website, which identifies the
number of scenes and the earliest time in a film that Meg Ryan, Melanie
Griffith, Kathleen Turner and others appear topless, or measures the hottest sex
scenes of all time in a film. The website is a search
engine for such trivia and titillation and it is not without its competitors.
Enter Allison (Katherine Heigl). Thriving. Beautiful.
Attractive. She is the golden girl at E! Entertainment Television, an
interviewer of celebrities, and she gives Mr. Ryan Seacrest a run for his money.
Seacrest (of "American Idol" and ubiquitous these days in all manner of
interview opportunities and red carpets) makes a hilarious cameo, as do a litany
of other stars in "Knocked Up", including Harold Ramis (one of Mr. Apatow's
biggest inspirations and friends.) Allison is going places in life, having
just been promoted at her job, much to the chagrin of her work colleague who
hides neither her displeasure or jealousy. A chance celebration of the
good news goes down with a drink (or four) at a nightclub and lounge where she
meets Ben, whose drinking and love of drugs is legendary. Before you can
say, "where on earth is that condom?", Allison and Ben have consummated a . . .
well, a circumstance.
So what does one do following such circumstances? Stick it out? Run
away? The parents-to-be navigate their way through the "bad" news, and one
of the rare warm-hearted moments in "Knocked Up" shows a willing, committed Ben
during a phone call with Allison. It's almost enough to make a grown man
cry -- and enough to make a woman who has experienced the runaway man syndrome re:
pregnancy -- faint.
Leslie Mann as Debbie and Paul Rudd as Pete in Judd Apatow's comedy "Knocked
Up", which opened today in North America.
(One of the great pleasures of "Knocked Up" is its music
soundtrack -- songs like "Sign Your Name", classics like "Reminiscing" for
instance -- and discussions of popular American movie and music culture.
It is replete with many amusing moments, including one about Steely Dan and what
Ben would rather do than listen to them.)
Allison's sister Debbie (Leslie Mann) has an empty marriage to Pete (played
brilliantly by Paul Rudd) and two daughters to boot. They are the textbook
couple in a Hollywood movie comedy: virtually regretting the day they met, even
more incredulous that they actually had not one but two children
together, and co-existing in anything but a peaceful fashion. Ms. Mann too
is very good in her off-screen husband Apatow's film, and one of her crowning
moments comes amid some racial tension in one scene outside a nightclub, in
which she tells a bouncer where to get off. The bouncer gives a bizarre
but nonetheless priceless rejoinder to Ms. Mann's character. This scene is
fraught with an uneasiness that is felt in the audience, and the discomfort and
tension of it only exceeds a moment when we see two quick close-up shots of the
crown of the baby's head emerging from the vagina of Ms. Heigl.
At this
moment in the film, the audience recoils in horror, and you would think that a
horror movie is what they were watching. What is sad, beguiling and
fascinating is that whether it is in Spike Lee's films "Mo' Better Blues" and "She
Hate Me" (where actual natural childbirths were shown), or in this film (where
special effects and make up were used), moviegoers are repulsed by the wondrous miracle of
childbirth on the big screen, yet applaud with joy and exhilaration when a child
gets killed on the big screen (next week's "Hostel Part II"), or when violence
in an action film reaches high-octane status.
But you will never hear an audience member applaud a childbirth shown on the big
screen at the movies.
"Knocked Up", which opened across the U.S. and Canada today, touts a lot of male
and female stereotypes and cliches -- and nearly gets buried by them.
There are many instances where the shallowness of the men exceeds the cynicism
and dogma of the women. The sexes shriek at each other -- nothing new
there -- and Allison and Ben go at it -- not just sexually -- on a number of
occasions. A lot of the time spent at a fever pitch could have been better
invested in exploring the insecurities and foibles of both characters much more,
rather than training the film's focus on the shrieking and obligatory diversion
to a land miles away from Brentwood, California when things have already hit
rock bottom. All the hot air could have been translated into a more
complex arrangement of events. But then, Mr. Apatow wouldn't have a
comedy. For example, the director might have chosen to go the route of
Woody Allen, a traditionally comedic artist, and made a "Match Point"-like
situation, which would have raised the stakes. Ironically, "Knocked Up"
may have been a better movie with more situations like "The Break-Up", a film
also from Universal, which was released a year ago (June 2, 2006.)
Guess who's coming to daddy? Seth Rogen as Ben, in the dollhouse (and the
doghouse) as a father-to-be in "Knocked Up".
In the final analysis, Ben is a boorish teddy bear with a bitter tongue. Allison is a resolute soul with a heart of gold. Mr. Rogen gives Ben an appealing vulgarity and incorrectness that many men will laugh at and perhaps identify with. He also has the sensitivity at times that some women will admire. It will likely be the men however, doing the bulk of the laughing throughout "Knocked Up". Ms. Heigl gives Allison a sweetness, intelligence and innocence. She is tough and unrelenting when the script requires it, but she plays her character as straight-laced as possible without gimmickry. Mr. Rogen and Ms. Heigl are a good match in the film's comedic moments and dramatic ones, and more of this type of interplay would have been welcomed in absentia of the hectoring. Typically apropos, the scenario of an unwanted pregnancy creates tension and drama, which this endlessly funny film that slowly exhausts itself toward the finish line, needed a bit more of.
"Knocked Up" is rated R by the Motion Picture Association
of America for sexual content, drug use and language. The film's duration
is two hours and nine minutes.
Related story:
Knocked Out Of The Box
Copyright The Popcorn Reel. PopcornReel.com. 2007.
All Rights Reserved.