Jason (Adam Scott) and Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt) think the world has been having and raising kids the wrong way pretty much since the beginning of time, and the problem might not be what you think. It’s marriage. And if not marriage, then at least love. According to these lifelong Manhattan friends, the biggest reason why childbearing causes so much conflict, difficulty and stress is that it is more often than not done by a pair of people madly in love. Hm. That’s certainly a controversial thesis, but look at Jason and Julie’s sources, and you’d be hard-pressed to disagree with their thought process.
During the course of four years they’ve seen their four best friends, the couples Ben and Missy (John Hamm and Kristen Wiig) and Alex and Leslie (Chris O’Dowd and Maya Rudolph), turn from hip, carefree and amorous urbanites into bitter, over-stressed and under-sexed mothers and fathers. Jason and Julie have seen firsthand the way that the introduction of a child into a relationship can suck out the romance and leave in its place resentment and disappointment, and that’s not a future either of them wants. There has to be a better way, they think. And so, naturally, they decide to have a kid together, as friends, nothing more and nothing less.
In this way, “Friends With Kids” takes the stale genre of the romantic comedy and ups the ante by turning it into something of a social experiment. There are some seriously interesting and vital questions being raised here by Westfeldt (who wrote and directed this feature in addition to starring in it), which is enough to raise it to a level of substance well above most of the cotton candy fare that usually makes up this genre. What is love, really? Is platonic love less special, or less valuable, than romantic love? How much experimentation and innovation is allowed when a human life is at stake? These, and more, are the kind of questions that your average Katherine Heigl movie would skirt around in favor of baby poop jokes and sexual innuendos, and so it is impressive and refreshing that Westfeldt works to address these questions directly. Unfortunately, she loses her way a bit when it gets time to answer them.
At the beginning of Jason and Julie’s childbearing experiment, things go swimmingly, much to the astonishment of their skeptical friends. Unburdened by sexual desire or romantic expectations, the friends are able to focus solely on parenting and maintain their sanity. And later, as Jason and Julie begin successfully dating again — Jason with a lithe and independent dancer (Megan Fox) and Julie with a dependable, divorced father (Edward Burns) — the film begins to look like it could really be shaping up to be a thoughtful and unique defense of unconventional, but no less effective, family setups. But then, suddenly, it isn’t.
Either Westfeldt got confused about her own message or she was scared into submission by the family values police. In any case, the film takes a turn in the last third that unfortunately undoes much of the work done in the first two, effectively turning what could have been an interesting new take on families into something much more generic and been-there-done-that.
And it really is a shame, because the necessary parts are there. The supporting cast shines, at times wildly hilarious, at times painfully serious, but always genuine and honest. The dialogue is fast and witty, funny and real. The setting, New York, is as beautiful and emblematic as always. Yes, all the necessary parts to make up a good movie are there. Except one, the most important one. Balls. If only Westfeldt could have taken the risk to go that one extra step in the direction of the new, and didn’t backpedal into the realm of the usual, this movie could have been something great.
Which ultimately begs the question: Which is worse, a movie that _almost_ goes “there” and stops short, or a movie that never even tries. I’d like to answer the latter, and I’d like to celebrate ambition even if it’s unfulfilled, but it’s undeniable that the disappointment and frustration I felt as I left the theater were deeper and more sad than anything a Katherine Heigl movie could ever make me feel.
3 out of 5 stars