Knocked up, dumbed down
♥♥♥♥ out of 5
DAVID LIPNOWSKI
The trailer declares Knocked Up “a comedy about where babies come from . . . and how grownups are born.” The film does a great job glorifying the process, but unfortunately not all one-night stands are so funny. This one girl I heard about wasn’t so lucky, earning the nickname “the clapper,” and it’s not referring to the ’80s sound-activated light switch.
In all seriousness, the film does a great job building characters we can all relate to. Who doesn’t know a poor Canadian Jew (complete with Jew-fro) who spends all day getting high and looking at porn? I’m sure much of its success at the box office is due to its universal appeal.
The film explores the journey surrounding an unplanned pregnancy. Despite the two-hour-plus length, the film keeps you laughing throughout and always feels sincere. If you enjoyed the 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up will be sure to satisfy, as the flow and style of these films are comparable, with Judd Apatow at the helm of both films. The films share many cast members, such as Leslie Mann (Apatow’s wife), Jonah Hill, Paul Rudd and the star Seth Rogan. The female lead is played by Katherine Heigl (also known as a hot doctor on Grey’s Anatomy). Familiar jokes resonate, such as the now-famous homophobic jokes of The 40-Year-Old Virgin. The interactions among friends are nearly identical to Virgin, but exude freshness.
Apatow does a great job “taking situations that we all are so familiar with [and] that we all know and have experienced ourselves, and makes it comedy.” The National Survey of Family Growth states that 49 per cent of pregnancies in 1994 were unintended, so apparently there are a lot of people out there who can relate. Paul Rudd, who you can expect to see a lot in the near future, gives a flawless performance.
After watching the film I tried to think of something to critique, but I found myself only adding to the critically acclaimed status of the film, noticing only minor flaws. I thought that perhaps it was unrealistic that Katherine Heigl’s character Alison Scott had so little self-esteem as to hook up with the dorky, overweight Ben Stone (Seth Rogan). When I probed the public in an empirically sound research experiment, I was told that these “you’re prettier than I am” hookups are far from rare with the right amount of alcohol. The only thing that bugged me was the character Jodi, played by Charlyne Yi. It seemed that this character was haphazardly introduced somewhere in the middle of the film, when someone in the casting department realized that there wasn’t a visible minority in the film other than the bouncer at the club (who gives a great performance).
