knocked down

the reverse shot blog perfectly sums up my ambivalence toward knocked up:

Knocked Up defies gravity all right, and it’s a dismaying feat of gutlessness, turning away from the comic potential of true conflict, moral complication, or the truly dirty business of living. There are exceptional scenes (the scary, true-feeling break-up in the gynecologist's office comes to mind), but writer/director Judd Apatow is positively in love with his buoyancy and good intentions, and coasts right past plausibility into the realm – intentional or not – of willful, Focus on the Family conservatism.

The film’s greatest conflict comes courtesy of its premise – stoner geek impregnates hot chick, who decides to give both baby and stoner a go – which it then systematically declines to exploit for conflict. There’s an inevitability to the proceedings that’s killing, a “let’s watch the improbable happen as if it’s the most natural thing in the world,” that sounds – and reads – far more progressive than it really is. For in order to make the wish-fulfillment work so effortlessly, Apatow disregards the multitude of questions that trail behind the plot’s every gallop forward. Why not an abortion? (Apatow’s reluctance to have any of his characters even utter the word is hardly clever or astute – it’s cowardly, or worse, capitulating. Ah, if abortion would only just go away...) What about her career? What about pregnancy makes such an unpromising mate suddenly worth pursuing? Are there no other romantic prospects for her? For him? Why again doesn’t she have an abortion?

as much as i wanted to, i just couldn't buy the premise that a woman of alison's social status (young, attractive, career-oriented) would one, hook up w/ a guy like ben (flabby, unemployed man-child stoner) and two, bear his child. huh? i know i'm supposed to suspend disbelief when it comes to movies but this was a little too much. besides, isn't comedy genuinely funny when it's true? maybe this is why i found the marriage between paul rudd + leslie mann the funniest + most compelling part of the movie.