Knocked Up (2007)

I had been told by dozens of people how can't-catch-your-breath funny this movie is. While I laughed quite a bit, I was surprised that, instead, I hadn't been informed about how touching it is.

Everyone knows the premise by now: chubby loser (Seth) gets a waaaaay out of his league girl (Alison) pregnant. But instead of being played strictly for laughs, I found the "getting ready for baby" scenes poignant and real. I remember the early months of my own marriage: the potent mixture of fear that we'd made a huge mistake, terror of screwing up further, and undeniable excitement of impending parenthood. "Authentic" is how I'd describe many of the scenes between Seth and Alison.

The secondary story lines were, to me, often more of a distraction than a help. Although I appreciated many of the scenes between Alison's sister and brother-in-law, and laughed pretty hard at the arrested development episodes in Seth's house with his four live-in buddies, I wanted to spend more time with the central couple. A few judicious cuts would've strengthened the throughline -- no reason for this to be more than 2 hours long.

B