Friends With Kids

I pretty much just write about TV shows, but I thought I’d change it up and write about a movie every once in a while.  A couple weeks ago I went to see Friends With Kids.  I already knew I would love it because I love the people in it.  No, it wasn’t as good as Bridesmaids, but then what is?  I don’t think it’s fair to compare the two, because they’re two completely different stories, even if half the actors are the same.  When the commercials are comparing them, they’re not saying it’s like Bridesmaids, they’re saying that the actors are also funny in this movie.

The concept is kind of hard to wrap your head around.  Two friends, best friends, decide to have a baby together, even though they plan to just remain friends and not be romantically involved at all, and just continue dating other people while being committed to raising a kid together.  I was curious to see how they came up with that idea.  Adam Scott and Jennifer Westfeldt are the last two singles left in their group of friends.  The other two couples, Kristen Wiig and Jon Hamm, and Maya Rudolph and Chris O’Dowd, are married with kids.  The two singles see how having kids have affected their friends’ lives and that gets them thinking about their own.

Jennifer Westfeldt’s character brings up the point that she wants to have a kid and how it’s scary to think that after having the kid, it would be a person who she would love more than anything, including the person she’s chosen to spend the rest of her life with.  They discuss how it might be better to have a kid now, and then find love later.  And then they somehow decide the two of them should have and raise one together.  And so they do.

This seems like a convultued idea, but think about the number of women who want to have kids and opt for sperm banks, which is considered a perfectly acceptable thing to do.  I guess this way, at least she knows the father and he’s invested in helping raise the kid.  But obviously, we know that feelings and attractions will occur, as it is a romantic comedy after all.  Apparently I like romantic comedies and chick flicks?  I honestly don’t know when the hell that happened.  But to be fair, it’s the rauchy, funny ones that I like, not the sappy ones.  So it’s okay.

And as I said, I couldn’t not love this movie because I love the people in it.  I liked seeing Jon Hamm and Kristen Wiig in another dysfunctional relationship.  And Maya Rudolph and Chris O’Dowd were great.  It was kind of weird seeing Adam Scott play a womanizing jerk as opposed to a nerdy pushover like on Parks and Recreation, but I got used to it.  And I haven’t seen Jennifer Westfeldt in anything before, but I love her.  I also love her clothes.  I found myself noticing her fashion choices throughout the movie and loving them.  I especially loved her coats and there was this red one she wore that I really wish I had.

So yeah.  Great movie, and if you don’t like chick flicks, don’t call it a chick flick.  Because it has the type of humour that should give it a different category, a better one than that.  And while I still think the concept is convoluted, I like the way the story plays out.  But I would never in a million years want to have a kid with a friend.  Unless my friend was Adam Scott, Jon Hamm, or Chris O’Dowd.

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