Friends with Kids (2011)
Friend with Kids is a film that I saw just because it was the only thing that looked remotely worth watching while I was on vacation. Mind you, I do love Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolf (and Adam Scott), but hadn’t heard too much about the film. I went into the film only reading the above description and having seen no trailer. I was pleasantly surprised. It joins the ranks of the adult comedy drama, which I find are regaining a bit of motion in the industry. Films like Crazy, Stupid, Love. Now these aren’t the best movies to hit the big screen, but they offer laughs that are not overly cheap, show adult situations, and give a real world perspective on relationships with other people. It sort of blurs the lines of romance (but not in the fantastical way), comedy, and drama. The movie itself focuses on a group of friends who enjoy being adults (drinks, sex, etc.), but when one of the couples announces they are having a baby, everything changes. Soon after, another couple has a child, and then the two remaining friends decide (after some time) to have a child as friends – where they get the benefits of parenthood without the woes of what it does to a relationship (which is exemplified in their friends’ relationships). At one point the film does take the costume of the “this seems like a bad situation, bad things happen, feelings get crossed, it ends happily” prototype, but what I think I liked most about the film was a perspective of trying to bend the traditional definitions of relationships. In the film, the friends are very doubtful that the two can pull of raising a baby in this way, but they are determined to prove it. All in all, if you are looking for a flatout comedy, this isn’t what you want to pop on the TV – it has some laughs, and despite the all star comedy cast, the humor comes more from the “funny because it is true” category. Overall, I enjoyed the film, seeing the dynamics of relationships and exploring the transient nature of societal expectation of marriage and parenthood.
 Trailer
