Monday, March 12, 2012

Friends With Kids: 2 Reasons to Watch it; 2 Reasons to Skip it


Reasons to watch:


1. The Cast - Sure, the Bridesmaids reunion element to the casting could be considered distracting but Jon Hamm, Chris O’Dowd, Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig have an unbelievable chemistry between them that it doesn't really matter. Add in one of my favorite people ever, Adam Scott, and you have yourself an amazing fucking cast. Ironically, the weakest link was Jennifer Westfeldt (who wrote and directed the film). She was just so bland in comparison to her costars – none were given much depth, but I still felt like I knew who everyone was. Her character, Julia, was sort of a judgemental bitch (and I don't think that was on purpose). I also loved the appearance of Megan Fox and Ed Burns, both were typecasted but they played their roles to perfection.

2. The Idea - The idea of having kids with a best friend has been spinning in my head for years now. The “normal” idea of falling in love, getting married, having kids just seems silly to me. People fall in and out of love so easily, they stay in marriages “for the kids” and just live miserably for no reason. This way of life of life is obviously flawed and it's about time for an update. I loved the relationship between Julia and Jason because it was built out of love, laughter and honesty – what would be so wrong about bringing up a child in that environment? Seems pretty brilliant to me.

Reasons to skip:


1. The Dialogue - Sooo much fucking dialogue! I rarely like films like this – where they just TALK endlessly about their situation, debate back and forth and repeat (the only writer/director who does this well is Woody Allen). Some of it was amusing, some of it was heartfelt (like when Jason explained to the group all the reasons that he loved Julia - I actually teared up a bit) but it was mostly pretentious, narcissistic, exhausting and annoying.

2. The Ending - ****SPOILER**** The whole movie is ruined with the ending. The entire concept of the film is that these are 2 people who aren’t sexually attracted to each other….and then suddenly they are. It’s ridiculous.

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