a review by Carissa Turner Smith
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Writer and director – Judd Apatow
Director of photography – Eric Edwards
Editors – Brent White and Craig Alpert
Music – Loudon Wainwright and Joe Henry
Production designer – Jefferson Sage
Producer – Judd Apatow, Shauna Robertson and Clayton Townsend
Universal Pictures. 129 minutes.
Rated R for sexual content, drug use and language.
STARRING: Seth Rogen (Ben Stone), Katherine Heigl (Alison Scott), Paul Rudd (Pete), Leslie Mann (Debbie), Jason Segel (Jason), Jay Baruchel (Jay), Jonah Hill (Jonah) and Harold Ramis (Ben’s Dad).
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Is it strange that the most moral comedies in today’s Hollywood are also the raunchiest?
Director Judd Apatow’s two feature films have, while peppering their two hours with profanity and explicit sexual humor, advocated sweetness and responsibility, above good looks, as essential for today’s American male. 2005′s The 40-Year-Old Virgin ended up affirming a character who doesn’t have sex until his wedding night; Knocked Up celebrates the inherent value of life and holds out the hope that personal transformation is possible.
Both films are really about the male protagonist’s growth, which is why, ultimately, Knocked Up is the less successful of the two; in a plot centering around an unexpected pregnancy, it seems like the female protagonist’s journey ought to be at least as important as the male’s. Knocked Up tries to devote some attention to the emotional and physical struggles of Alison (Katherine Heigl), who ends up pregnant after a drunken one-night stand with stoner and slacker Ben (Seth Rogen). Her difficulties are clearly not at the heart of the film, however. In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, Apatow makes a telling comment: “[At first] I thought Knocked Up was about two people trying to decide if they liked each other. But people have such an affection for her [Katherine Heigl] that it became this movie about Seth Rogen trying to earn Katherine Heigl.” He doesn’t seem to realize that putting a female character up on a pedestal denies her the opportunity to change and grow – in other words, to be a real character.
The problem with Knocked Up’s female characters extends to Alison’s sister Debbie (played by Leslie Mann, Judd Apatow’s real-life wife). Debbie shares many of the concerns common to married women with young children: she wants her husband (Paul Rudd) to spend more time with the family, she wants him to take the children’s safety more seriously, she worries that she’s losing her attractiveness. Yet Debbie is such a screechy harridan that I doubt many women will appreciate being forced to look into this distorted mirror. She’s not the sort of comic character who can inspire change by leading you, amid laughter, to recognize your own faults in her; rather, she’s a male vision of the nightmarish wife, and thus she really speaks to men’s fears instead of women’s.
Perhaps Alison and Debbie could have been more complex characters if Apatow had not felt the need to devote so much screen time to small cameos. Ryan Seacrest appears playing Ryan Seacrest, The-40-Year-Old Virgin’s Steve Carell gets interviewed – as Steve Carell – by Alison, who works for a television program similar to Entertainment Tonight. Many reviewers have praised the plethora of pop-culture references in Knocked Up, but it seems more likely that these knowing winks will render the film outdated within ten years.
Another distraction is Ben’s set of toked-out buddies, played by, it seems, every young male who has ever been in one of Apatow’s canceled TV comedies. Fans of Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared (and I am one) may appreciate these familiar faces, but other viewers may be puzzled as to why these guys are supposed to be worthy of our sustained attention. Yep, they’re potheads and losers. That’s about all we need to know, and we don’t need it drummed into our heads in order to appreciate the delicate negotiations Ben must accomplish to remain friends with them while also “growing up” into Alison’s world.
When the film does focus on the difficulties of changing for someone you love, it’s at its strongest – and this is a constant Apatow theme, one he does with more realism and heart than any other director working today. One of the best scenes in The 40-Year-Old Virgin is one in which the titular character, Andy, who has been selling off his comic-book action figures at the urging of his love interest Trish, finally gets fed up. The argument that ensues – in which she points out that she never asked him to change for her – is closer to the truth of relationships than anything I’ve seen in a romantic comedy. It’s your fear that you may lose yourself, contending with your hope that you will.
Similar scenes characterize Knocked Up, though none are quite so poignant as the one from The 40-Year-Old Virgin, because, unlike Andy, Ben has an obvious need to change. Bongs and babies are not a good combination – though we learn that Ben’s father smoked marijuana during his son’s growing-up years. His father has also been divorced three times, leading him to ask Ben, “Why do you come to me for relationship advice?” Many grown-up children of Baby Boomers can no doubt relate to the struggle of Ben and Alison to create a healthy, lasting relationship when they have no good models to draw from.
Speaking of poor role models, Alison’s mother is even worse than Ben’s father. After Alison has discovered that she’s pregnant, her mother encourages her to “take care of it” so that she can continue with her career. The film clearly expects us to be as horrified as Alison is when her mother reminds her that her stepsister had an abortion and went on with her life – and, the mother adds, “Now she has a real baby” – as if a life has to be planned in order to be real. No wonder Alison is so driven to succeed; will she live up to her mother’s decision to bestow life upon her?
Ben’s father, on the other hand, in spite of his obvious character flaws, dishes out some of the most meaningful statements of the film. Ben’s lack of initiative – and of a job – doesn’t stop his dad from telling him that his son is the best thing that ever happened to him. Ben jokes that this makes his dad’s life seem even more pathetic, but he’s clearly touched by his father’s unconditional love, and it inspires him to try to be a good father to this unexpected little life that he’s helped to create. Judd Apatow’s own young daughters appear in the film, as the on-screen daughters of Debbie and Pete. No doubt his own experiences as a father contribute to the film’s view of the goodness of new human life.
Knocked Up may not be a movie that many Christians want to see: the drug use is constant and the sexual humor pretty extreme. However, we should be able to recognize the value of a comedy with a moral message – a comedy that actually has a chance of communicating that message to those who most need it. Surely we who celebrate the Incarnation of Jesus Christ – God’s communication of Himself at our human level – can appreciate that, even if the movie isn’t something we feel called to see.
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Carissa Turner Smith blogs at www.theottery.com
December 11th, 2009 at 10:47 am
Every newspaper seemed to give this movie 4 stars, so I saw it, curious as to what passes for comedies these days. What I saw was a profane, unbelievable, and highly uncomfortable movie to watch, reveling in stereotypes of men, women and drug users.