Two best friends decide to have a child together while keeping their relationship platonic, so they can avoid the toll kids can take on romantic relationships.
The problem with the film is its muddled tone: to begin with it is broad, vulgar and mostly unfunny, and then, all too late, it develops into a more effective Woody Allen-esque relationship comedy. But it does have the funniest nappy-changing scene of the year, and that’s got to be worth something.
Smart dialogue, a gifted ensemble and good intentions from Jennifer Westfeldt, but her grown-up romcom can’t quite escape feeling like a sitcom on the big screen.
There’s a funny film to be made about unconventional family configurations, but Friends With Kids isn’t it.
It benefits from a supernaturally engaging cast, but this treads too closely to the rom-com model to feel as smart or moving as Westfeldt’s previous best.
This isn’t really any edgier than an episode of Friends. Perhaps if Westfeldt’s sitcom model had been Modern Family she might have succeeded in creating something genuinely contemporary. And funny.
It’s certainly not as funny or even emotionally resonant as Bridesmaids and the crude dialogue becomes wearying as writer-director Jennifer Westfeldt (Kissing Jessica Stein) strains to make the characters uber-modern and sexually frank.
It's more than a tad contrived, but at least Westfeldt is trying something different and slightly daring.
Friends with Kids takes a real subject – wanting children before it’s too late, not being in a suitable relationship – and has half an adult stab at it, until it takes the one turn you’re hoping it won’t.
This agonisingly unfunny and charmless grownup relationship movie (perhaps inspired by Nicole Holofcener) that is so phoney it made all my teeth hurt and caused my sinuses to feel as if they had been filled with radium.
Alienating sitcom.
The "super-progressive" social experiment at least has a foolhardy courage, but you know it's a matter of time before the old orthodoxies of romantic comedy kick in.
Maybe this is a better, more thoughtful movie than you initially give it credit for?
Friends with Kids is funny and likable and while the dialogue is often bawdy and sexually frank, its elements are completely fairytale, including a climax involving a cross-town dash.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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