'Knocked Up'

Great, funny and wise expectations

BY GENE SEYMOUR | gene.seymour@newsday.com

June 1, 2007

Two hours and small change seems like a lot for any movie comedy to ask of its audience. But it's hard to imagine how much "Knocked Up" could shed from its baggy frame without diminishing its roughhousing charms. This is a movie that sets out to tickle you into submission without letting you forget how vulnerable and human its characters - and you - are.

All of which sounds like an extravagant claim to make for a story that depicts its protagonist as such a dedicated stoner that he is shown taking sustained hits of marijuana smoke through a gas mask. Ben Stone (Seth Rogen) is nothing if not inventive in figuring out elaborate ways to waste his time and that of his slacking housemates.

One improbable evening, Ben meets Alison (Katherine Heigl of "Gray's Anatomy") at a dance club. She is everything Ben is not: graceful, smartly dressed, career-oriented and (oh, yeah) slender. Doesn't matter: They get so tipsy that they fall into bed with each other.

Next morning, clarity takes hold and they both write it off as a one-night stand. But within weeks, Ben finds out that the adage "I'll still respect you in the morning" can sometimes attach itself to many, many mornings - and afternoons and evenings. Alison is pregnant, and Ben's the only man in greater Los Angeles who could be the father. His earnest, if awkward, attempts to do right by Alison and their forthcoming baby provide much of the comedy and pathos of "Knocked Up."

But writer-director Judd Apatow, who teased unexpected richness out of a similar premise two years ago with "The 40 Year-Old Virgin," is after much more than showing how a Guy can force himself to become a Man. Ben's rocky passage becomes a framework to explore how hard it is to let go of the self-centeredness that adolescents of all ages believe to be their birthright.

For example, Alison's sister, Debbie (Leslie Mann, Apatow's wife), may be frighteningly no-nonsense in her household duties, but she can't quite let go of the last vestiges of her past as a party girl. Her husband (Paul Rudd, fashioning another comedic gem) seems neither to know nor to care about Debbie's hopes and fears. All he can do is moan about how married life is a long, not-so-funny episode of "Everybody Loves Raymond." Even Alison, the best-equipped of anyone to act like a grown-up, cultivates her insecurities as if they were houseplants.

Apatow is too much the committed wiseguy to force these dilemmas into tidy solutions. "Knocked Up" proves to be one of the rare contemporary movie comedies whose attitude stumbles toward something resembling true wisdom. You may be laughing too hard to be aware of any grand moral strategies. But you'll recognize the stumbling as being close to home.

E-mail

Reprint

'Knocked Up'

Great, funny and wise expectations

Related links

'Knocked Up'

Popular stories

Hampton Roads Facts, Data and Statistics

Blogs