Not Coming to a Theater Near You

Knocked Up / USA / 2007

The nuclear scene in Knocked Up – the one in the trailer designed to encourage the most uproarious responses – is when the soon-to-be-father is informed by the soon-to-be-mother that the two have, wanted or not, a young one on the way. “Fuck off!” is his default response, and it is funny; this is the same casual disbelief with which he’ll approach any unexpected conflict to his interest in absolute, self-serving leisure. Of course, the gravity of the circumstances will weigh on him, and the film is very generally a depiction of his escalating comprehension of his responsibility.

Because its central character (Apatow regular Seth Rogen, whose stoner wit is exploited opportunistically herein) is a meticulously architected dude, Knocked Up is a contrived male fantasy. It’s about how the perfect woman can conjure the most stalwart dude’s latent charms. It will end happily for all because there’s no real dilemma to consider precisely because the girl who’s knocked up is young, successful, and beautiful. There is a rather sweet scene in which she comes to empathize with his entrepreneurial dude-ery by alerting him to the “Tits and cooch!” during the opening credits of some night-owl film (he and his buds maintain a website that indexes such scenes). Such compromise in character is only superficially imparted upon the pregnant girl, however, in the boy’s reluctant participation in shopping for nursery paraphernalia or reading baby books. It is, in all, a forgivably and often hilarious enterprise; had it an inebriated Steve Carell or even a choreographed sing-a-long dance sequence, it might have been Judd Apatow’s best work.

by Rumsey Taylor | Source: Universal Studios 35mm print
28 May 2007 12:40 PM | Submit Comment