Mini Review
In Friends With Kids, Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt) and Jason (Adam Scott) - two best friends who have no physical attraction to each other - decide to have a child together having seen the disastrous effect having kids has had on their friends in relationships. Julie and Jason think that having a child together when they are not in a relationship with each other means they will skip all the fighting and hard times that come with having a baby when you're already married. Trouble in paradise begins when Julie starts to fall for her baby daddy.
The film centers on three couples, Julie and Jason who are not technically a couple but have a kid together and the two married couples, Ben and Missy (Jon Hamm and Kristen Wiig) and Alex and Leslie (Chris O'Dowd and Maya Rudolph). As Jennifer Westfeldt wrote and directed this movie as well as giving herself the lead role, you could be mistaken for thinking that she saw Bridesmaids, saw how good everyone was and decided that stealing the cast from that movie would guarantee her a hit. She could not have been more wrong.
See the difference between Bridesmaids and this is that Bridesmaids made the most of it's comedy cast. Kristen Wiig co-wrote Bridesmades and boy is she a funny lady. Chris O'Dowd we all know from The IT Crowd and The Boat That Rocked, is a funny guy. Put them together with other funny people in funny scenarios and you've got a hit. Make those people miserable and depressed for two hours and you've got a disaster.
That's what Friends With Kids does. It might be realistic (I don't know as I don't have kids) but it's not funny enough with the realism and it definately doesn't make the most of the cast. What on earth possessed Kristen Wiig to make this movie I don't know? Maybe she owed Jennifer Westfeldt a massive favour? Maybe she wanted to prove her dramatic acting talent? Whatever it was it wasn't worth it. She spends two hours being depressed and angry and it does not a good comedy make.
Westfeldt and Scott are fine as the leads but as everyone else is so severely (and in the case of Wiig), criminally underused, you don't really care. And the ending is so abrupt you'll wonder why you waited for it. Not worthy of the talent involved. 5 out of 10.
Viewing Date - 30th June 2012
UK Release Date - 29th June 2012
Cast Overview:
Adam Scott ~ Jason Fryman
Jennifer Westfeldt ~ Julie Keller
Jon Hamm ~ Ben
Kristen Wiig ~ Missy
Maya Rudolph ~ Leslie
Chris O'Dowd ~ Alex
Megan Fox ~ Mary Jane
Edward Burns ~ Kurt
Director/Writer ~ Jennifer Westfeldt
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