In the interest of full disclosure, this movie would be offensive to many of my more conservative readers. It is rated R for a reason. It has lots of bad language, and features a scene of a couple watching an adult film, and in the scene, a couple of shots of what they are watching are shown. Was it necessary to the movie to show the video clip? I think not, but since art itself is unnecessary, the greater question has to be does this film work and does it have something to say? To that question, the answer is an emphatic yes. This is one of the best romantic comedies I have seen in years. It seems to owe a lot to Nora Ephron/Rob Reiner's "When Harry Met Sally", but it has its own voice, as so much of the content of the film deals with the realities of what happens when couples who are friends begin having children. The last scene of the movie can be almost compared frame by frame to the last scene of "When Harry Met Sally", but the dialogue of the scene in this film is much rougher, and I think that it captures something about where we have journeyed sexually as a culture since 1989, the year that "When Harry Met Sally" was released.
Julie and Jason (Jennifer Westfeldt and Adam Scott) are best friends. They have a platonic relationship which has lasted for almost 20 years. They are friends with two other couples, Ben and Missy (Jon Hamm and Kristen Wiig) and Alex and Leslie (Chris O'Dowd and Maya Rudolph). At the beginning of the movie, the six of them are out to dinner in their Manhattan habitat, and they all see a family across the restaurant with squirmy kids. As a couple of them loudly protest the presence of the children in the restaurant, Alex and Leslie sheepishly break the news to all at the table that they are expecting a child. The film quickly flashes forward 4 years to show the lives of these 6 after children have entered the picture. Now, not only do Alex and Leslie have kids, but so do Ben and Missy. As Julie and Jason make their way all the way out to Brooklyn for a birthday party for Alex ($45 cab fare), we see a new reality. Alex and Leslie are at each other's throats about sharing the load of parenting, while Ben and Missy are downright hostile toward each other. Julie and Jason like kids and want to have them themselves, but they do not want the future that they see before them. So they concoct a plan to conceive a child together, then raise the child while maintaining their separate lives.
Since this is a romantic comedy, there is a certain predictability to the ending, but it says something about the quality of this movie that I wasn't sure exactly how this movie would end. However, it stays true to form while making some true statements along the way. The strongest piece of writing to me was the way Jennifer Westfeldt (who wrote, produced and directed this movie on top of starring in it) contrasts the marriages of Julie and Jason's best friends. While Alex and Leslie's marriage encounters challenges, it is clear that they love each other, and that foundation allows them to see the worst in the partner and still stay together. Meanwhile, the picture of Ben and Missy is one where the fireworks of their relationship do not last because they don't actually like each other that much. Once things get difficult, they are at each other's throats. These two pictures give Julie and Jason something with which they can grapple, as they become parents and have to deal with the complex consequences of how they chose to become parents.
In the end, the movie rises above being a run of the mill romantic comedy because it has a lot of things to say about relationships and how children change everything. Jason especially has some big things to learn, and sometimes what needs to be learned is that your best friend can also be your life long partner. As I watched this movie with my life long partner, I saw a lot of truth. It is amazing where you can find profound truth sometimes.
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