Knocked Up
(Cert 15)
- The Guardian,
- Friday August 24 2007
- Article history
Geek plot ... Knocked Up
It's a little late arriving, but at last it's here: the best film of the summer, and the sweetest, funniest, gentlest thing I have seen in such a long time. Knocked Up is written and directed by Judd Apatow, now increasingly hailed as Hollywood's unchallenged laughmeister. He is the veteran TV comedy writer who worked on The Larry Sanders Show and Freaks and Geeks, and for his feature debut he gave us The 40-Year-Old Virgin. That was a much loved film - but this, as the gamers and slackers who populate much of this film like to say, takes it to the next level.
- Knocked Up
- Release: 2006
- Country: USA
- Cert (UK): 15
- Runtime: 129 mins
- Directors: Judd Apatow
- Cast: Katherine Heigl, Leslie Mann, Paul Rudd, Seth Rogen
Seth Rogen, who was one of Steve Carell's buddies in Virgin, plays Ben Stone, a paunchy, frizzy-haired timewaster in his early 20s, but looking a decade older. He hangs out with his appalling stoner buddies, playing silly games in their shared house and ostensibly setting up a website giving exact information about which scenes in which films show hot women taking their clothes off.
Meanwhile, in another part of the universe, or perhaps another universe entirely, Katherine Heigl plays Alison (blond, beautiful, focused), who is a TV production assistant and aspiring presenter on the E! channel, which is devoted to interviewing celebrities. One glorious day, she is summoned to see head producer Jack (Alan Tudyk) and told that the suits like her showreel and want to try her in front of the camera. The scene is a subtle joy because of Kristen Wiig playing Jill, a female executive who clearly hates the decision and tries to undermine Alison throughout the meeting.
To celebrate, Alison goes to a club with her sister Debbie (Leslie Mann) in whose marital home's guest cottage she is still living. Here she meets Ben and submits to his goofy adoration in a spirit of oh-what-the-hell. Their one-night stand has cataclysmic results. Soon Alison finds herself stricken with morning sickness in the middle of an interview, vomiting in front of a revolted James Franco. But Alison wants to keep the baby, and feels obliged to inform Ben, who is part horrified, part proprietorial. He is hardly more than a big baby himself. They nervously agree to stay together for the pregnancy, and both Ben and Alison have nine months to grow up before the baby arrives. And this is the stormy period in which they fall in love for real.
The possibilities for yuckiness are endless, and the memories of Hugh Grant and Julianne Moore in Chris Columbus's sentimental 1995 comedy Nine Months all too vivid. But Knocked Up is a delight: smart, funny, charming and even moving. There are great gags, especially when Ben finds he can't have sex with the pregnant Alison because he can't bear the idea of his penis coming so close to his unborn child's face.
It also has moments of darkness and pessimism, coolly absorbed into the mix, which reminded me a little of Alexander Payne. These darker moments occur more in the male half of the movie, when Ben befriends Alison's brother-in-law Pete (Paul Rudd), a cool guy who is clearly unhappy in his relationship. They have a heartbreaking conversation about what it is like to be middle-aged and married, which emerges when they are in the park, watching Pete's children entranced by the sight of bubbles. For Pete, the sight of his children's delighted faces is painful, and reminds him of his own inability to take that kind of sheer, unmediated pleasure in anything.
On the female side, Alison is taken out to lunch by her formidable mom (Joanna Kerns) and told that she is crazy to have the baby when her career is on the verge of breaking out. Her sister made the right decision when something similar happened to her - and then, later, she reminds her, had a "real" baby. It's a chilling moment that momentarily slices through the film's feelgood buzz. As it happens, the pro-choice/pro-life debate doesn't weigh the movie down, and there is no sense that any conservative message is being peddled with Alison's decision to keep the baby. The real question is: should she keep the relationship?
However contrived it is in some ways, there is something refreshingly unexpected and incorrect about this film. In an age when professionals like the ones represented here are putting off having children until their careers are established, and then, we are told, agonising about their "babyhunger", Knocked Up presents us with an alternative reality. Two future parents in their early 20s, hardly even grownups, make a romantic, idealistic wager on the future of their love. Apatow pulls off the considerable trick of making us feel protective, even parental towards these people. The happy hum stayed with me hours after the credits had ceased to roll.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2007/aug/24/juddapatow.comedy
Two important quotes
"In an age when professionals like the ones represented here are putting off having children until their careers are established"
-this is significant as it shows how women have now become more career focused and independent, implying that they have somewhat equal status as men and therefore relating to my question as it shows how women have bigger responsibilities.
"Katherine Heigl plays Alison (blonde, beautiful, focused)"
- this is important as it illustrates the objectification of women and how her appearance is the most significant when it comes to her job.
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