Friends with Kids

Plot synopsis:
Jason (an advertising executive) and Julie (a charitable investment advisor), longtime best friends now in their mid-30s live in the same building in Manhattan. Not romantically involved, they are close friends with two childless married couples, the placid Alex and Leslie and the sex-obsessed Ben and Missy. During the next four years, after both couples have children, their marriages suffer. Following a chaotic birthday party for Jason at Alex and Leslie's place in Brooklyn, Jason and Julie discuss how it would be better to have children first, to 'get it out of the way' since 'time is running out', and only then meet the person that you wanted to marry. After more discussion, they decide to have a child together, despite never having had romantic feelings for each other, and then to continue to date other people, to find 'their one'. Although their friends predict disaster, Jason and Julie adjust to their new relationship with baby Joe far better than their friends had imagined.
Jason and Julie begin dating again and enter into budding relationships with young actress Mary Jane and divorced father Kurt, respectively. During a couples winter getaway in Vermont, Ben calls Jason and Julie's thought process and parenting skills into question. In the ensuing argument, Ben decries their arrangement as untenable in the long term and humiliates Missy. Jason defends his decision to have a child with Julie, saying that he loves her deeply and that she was the soundest choice of person for him to start a family with.
After returning from Vermont, Ben and Missy separate and later divorce. Shortly thereafter, at Julie's birthday dinner out (about 18 months after Joe's birth), Jason is surprised to find that she invited only him. Julie tells him that Kurt wants her to meet his children that weekend but that this new degree of commitment has made her realize that she is in love with Jason, who, along with Joe, have become her closest family. A stunned Jason tells Julie that his love for her has never been romantic and has asked Mary Jane to move in with him. Heartbroken, Julie leaves the restaurant, and soon moves out of her Manhattan apartment to Brooklyn, putting some space between herself and Jason. A few months thereafter, Jason and Mary Jane break up over their differing feelings about children, and both Julie and Jason return to dating others. Several months later, at a bar with Ben, Jason confides that he does have feelings for Julie, but that their messy split makes acting on such feelings impossible. Ben disagrees, noting the differences between his and Missy's sex-based relationship and Jason and Julie's long-lasting friendship.
Shortly before Julie's next birthday, after dropping 2-1/2-year-old Joe off at Julie's house after a day out, Jason presents her with a present: a photo scrapbook of the couple, and then the three of them (that he'd made for her birthday prior, but she never received due to their abrupt parting), consistent with Julie's prior statement that Jason and Joe were her family. They reminisce over several of the photos and then put Joe to bed, after Jason says a few things about 'staying the night' (as Joe wants him to). Jason's emotional shift and words make Julie emotional and uncomfortable, so she sends Jason home. He leaves, but quickly returns, and tells her what he said to her a year ago was all wrong. He finally realized it—she is the love of his life, she is his 'person', "and that's just the way it is". She tells him she can't be with someone who isn't 'into' her, and he, after a passionate kiss, offers to have sex with her to prove he is into her, in every possible way. She accepts his offer, passionately kisses him back, and they tumble onto her bed.

Tags: romantic, entertaining

Review:
There are a few moments where this can slightly creep in, but for the most part it actually tackles things in a refreshing, honest way and I was surprised by that.Of course the premise (two thirtysomething best friends decide to stop waiting and have a kid together) is straight from the rom-com horsecrap handbook, but there are some turns along the way that I thought were surprisingly dark and genuine for something with such a cheap, hokey idea.
Then again the film does end up being a pretty standard rom-com at the end of it all, so it kind of takes a jab at itself in the end.Westfeldt assembled a nice group of her actor friends to play out the parts, but unfortunately she didn't have the smarts to cast someone other than herself in the lead.
As with any film, we bring to it as much as we take away, so I'm guessing this is why I thought Friends with Kids was a beautifully written and executed tale of modern love, friendship and family, whereas many people (it seems), thought otherwise.
The two friends are Jason (Adam Scott) and Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt, who serves as the writer, one of the six producers, and director), who have been the kind of people who are truly meant for each other, but neither one will wake up and realize it.
Jason and Julie figure that if they have a baby together and then proceed to move forward by dating other people, yet still taking care of the kid, their relationship as friends will not suffer.They decide to do this on a whim and out of convenience, and nine months later, they have a child.
Jason falls lust at first sight when he meets the offbeat and attractive Megan Fox's Mary Jane, and Julie can't seem to take her eyes off the rather cliché everyman, Kurt (Edward Burns).Their friends are concerned for their behavior, mainly because they believe the having-a-child-without-plans-to-marry setup was an impulsive and foolish decision on their part.
These are the scenes that create great humanity and drama between the characters, in an non-contrived, believable manner.Friends With Kids feels like an exercise in Woody Allen-esque filmmaking, right down to the intellectual characters and the subtle character the state of New York plays.
It's endearing and reassuring to see a picture so true to its "romantic comedy" title.Starring: Adam Scott, Jennifer Westfeldt, Chris O'Dowd, Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, and Jon Hamm.
North American cinema is already quite saturated of films about the vicissitudes from "pretty people", but in spite of that, I was interested in watching Friends with Kids because its cast included various solid actors, and because it was Jennifer Westfeldt's debut as a director.
Nevertheless, Westfeldt, Adam Scott, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Chris O'Dowd and Jon Hamm (Westfeldt's romantic partner in real life) bring sincere performances, and they are the main reason why this film is worthy of a slight recommendation.Friends with Kids spills in every frame the pretension from New Yorker "yuppie" cinema, with characters too plunged into their own melodrama in order to realize that many of their problems are absurd, and could have an easy solution if they were less selfish and more mature.
After seeing this film, if one didn't live in the real world, one might think that marriage is an awful state to be in, kids are nothing more than annoying pets, crude talk is completely commonplace, and that love is the same as sex.It feels that this movie was written by someone who was never married...and, it turns out, it was!
The average family loves their kids, cannot afford nannies, believes in the commitment of marriage, and understands that real love between two people is not just an expression that can be only conveyed in the act of sex.Adam Scott as the lead actor only has a few expressions which he uses over and over again.
When you write , direct and star [ especially when you haven't been in a movie for a while] ,screen time must be very exciting but filming yourself looking at yourself , pretty explains the whole movie for me.There's a good reason Kristen Wigg features on the poster, Bridesmaids made millions, she's funny and has got game.But imagine being in the marketing meeting where you had to explain to Jennifer why her face wouldn't be appearing in any of the advertisements for the film she wrote, directed and starred in.
The other married couple (Jon Hamm, Krisen Wiig) start out by attempting to break all Guiness records for sex, and end up evolving into something a bit less exciting.The two platonic friends decide to "beat the system" by sharing parenting responsibilities while pursuing separate dating lives until they find "the right person".
Westfeldt finds a "perfect" guy in Edward Burns, and Scott finds happiness with Megan Fox. Of course, you know where this is headed.What struck me throughout the film was how every scene and every character was just a bit off.
Right down to Jennifer Westfeldt's face and Adam Scott's character (who is a total jerk, no personality, not abnormally good-looking, and calls Westfeldt's character 'Doll' for godsakes) meeting a skinny, flexible dancer with big boobs and the face of Megan Fox, the movie is so fake it was impossible to be transported to happy fantasy land.
This is what I hate about most rom-com movies, people try to act too stylish or melodramatic or just loud.Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt) and Jason (Adam Scott) are friends since high school where both don't seem to advance in their respective love lives 20 years since.
They have some changes in their characters late in the game (the changes you know the anti-couple will have from the moment the first scene finishes) but by the time these changes occur, you've probably given up caring about these spoilt unlikeable people.The cast keep that at bay for a while – although I was a bit behind from the start because I found both Scott and Westfeldt to be the least of the cast – a problem considering they are the leads.
Fox, Burns and a few others add starry names but not too much else.Friend with Kids has some energy to it and at times the snap of the dialogue is entertaining but the film can never get away from its main problem which is that the core plot and characters are both predictable and hard to like.
But all these actors/ress that you like and want to see are barely in this movie right, mostly because the annoyingly narcissist Jennifer Westfeldt take all the screen time, all we see is her face, still, very still (plastic surgery does not allow much flexibility in facial expression...) and the plot, well, it's one of those with no substance, at all...
Just like Harry and Sally, this one is set in New York and introduces a somewhat new and probably more honest way of conducting the adult tie.However, "Friends with Kids" manages to not confront the viewer with any idealism, it always keeps its feet on the ground, simply presenting normal folks who constantly try to make the best only to find themselves struggling for the most obvious values and feelings: love, family, home, and happiness.Each character develops in a way one cannot refuse to empathize with.
Now that we are all older, "Friends with Kids" approaches that next stage of life in a novel way.Jason (Adam Scott) and Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt) are lifelong friends who haven't found the "one" yet.
The film's writing has such an affecting articulation that it connects on a very personal level, and emotions come out in a very real way.Most people love the casting because it reunites a handful of "Bridesmaids" actors, but the best part to me was Edward Burns playing the "perfect" boyfriend.
The ending is completely predictable and pointless.Westfeldt (Jon Hamm's significant other in real life, Hamm having produced this thing) doesn't seem to have a very positive look at child rearing and plays along with 'let the child run the household and prepare for entitlement': rarely have relationships between 'adults' and children been so off putting.
It has almost half the cast of Bridesmaids and Megan Fox. Another thing, Jennifer Westfeldt's acting at times was a bit cold and too serious for a comedy.
It seems like a Hollywood-typical setup, but writer, director and star Jennifer Westfeldt ("Kissing Jessica Stein") gives it a genuine treatment that steers clear of the farcical direction these comedies so easily (and often) give in to.Julie (Westfeldt) and Jason (Adam Scott) have been best friends since college who are happily single.
Their other college friends, played by the "Bridesmaids" crew of Maya Rudolph, Chris O'Dowd, Jon Hamm and Kristen Wiig, are married and most recently, having kids.
After little Joe is born, however, the situation starts to feel possible and even real.Westfeldt is savvy enough of a writer to recognize that these experimental relationship comedies — be they friends with benefits or some other arrangement — all have an obvious trajectory: the main characters realize they have feelings for each other and fall in love.
In doing so, she successfully communicates the idea that there's no easy or perfect way to raise a child, that no one's necessarily wrong.Edward Burns and Megan Fox, who play the love interests of Julie and Jason post-having a baby, also add a whole other layer of perspective to the situation.
None of the characters in the film are superfluous or unnecessary, they all offer some insight into the story; even the brief appearances by Julie and Jason's parents bring something to the conversation.As sincere a vision a Westfeldt tells her story with, however, not even she can completely write around the predictability of her story, and at times the plot pulls in that fated direction too quickly and some elements feel rushed away or overlooked.
Fortunately, our attachment to and the likability of Jason and Julie help to push through what we might be more skeptical of in a lesser Hollywood comedy."Friends with Kids" will likely come as close to a legitimate imagining of what happens when people try these non-conforming relationships as we're ever likely to get.
It features a modern twist on a relationship: two people who only love each other as friends decide to have a kid between them after seeing what the standard marriage-and-children debacle has done to their friends.The casting of dependable comic actors like Chris O'Dowd and Kristen Wiig makes you anticipate at least some sort of ensemble of memorable characters, or even memorable scenes with these actors, but the movie delivers none.
It feels like a rip-off that you're stuck with Adam Scott and Jennifer Westfeldt in a movie with O'Dowd and Wiig.Adam Scott is a good actor, but I wasn't sure how to take his turn as a serial womanizer who ends up with the surgically enhanced Megan Fox on his arm.
Jennifer Westfeldt and Adam Scott play best friends who both want kids but not all the crap that comes with marriage and decide to have a baby with no relationship strings attached.
Kids are in this movie all the time, and it's a far more realistic portrayal of what it's actually like to be a parent than the films in which kids are always off screen and completely silent.The group of actors that play the main couple's friends includes the likes of Jon Hamm, Mya Rudolph, and most notably, Kristen Wiig, who is saddled with perhaps the most thankless role given to any actor in recent years, who has virtually nothing funny to do despite her tremendous gifts as a comedienne, and who yet managed to captivate me in every scene she appeared in.
The premise of the movie is a great idea, and the story has a funny drama-like feel to it which is entertaining.However, the scenario takes a dive after the ski weekend, because we go right back to the pre-chewed romantic drivel that most Hollywood chick flick try to sell us.
Westfeldt also takes the lead female role and she is "okay" although I think it is fair to say she is a better filmMAKER than actress (I would have preferred seeing Maya Rudolph in the role).The film brings to the surface the question of what happens to friends when their other long-time friends begin having children -- it is a MOST valid question as any of those friends "left behind" can attest to.
Westfeldt (Kissing Jessica Stein, "Notes from the Underbelly") and Adam Scott ("Parks and Recreation", The Aviator, Leap Year) play the adults believably -- their questions and concerns of what they are and/or are not doing are common and never unbelievable.Their friends all come from relationships of varying degrees of happiness and success -- Kristen Wiig ("SNL", Bridesmaids, Whip It), Jon Hamm (Bridesmaids, "Mad Men", The Town), Maya Rudolph (Bridesmaids, "SNL", MacGruber), Chris O'Dowd (Bridesmaids, Pirate Radio) and the non-Bridesmaids-actors such as the surprisingly-decent Megan Fox (Transformers, Jennifer's Body, Jonah Hex) and Edward Burns (The Brothers McMullen, Saving Private Ryan, 27 Dresses) -- which stir-up even more questions of what a relationship is supposed to be.There is nothing wrong with Friends with Kids ...
Friends with Kids is a film for grown ups that is really enjoyable to watch, and it's one of the best films I've seen in quite some time (with one of the best ten minute endings of any romantic comedy/drama).
Jennifer Westfeldt (who also wrote and directed) and Adam Scott, were the BFF's who have a baby together (Jason and Julie), with Maya Rudolph, British (IT Crowd) funny man Chris O'Dowd, SNL veteran Kristen Wiig in a non-comedic role, Madman John Hamm as well as gorgeous Edward Burns and Megan Fox as the other main players.
Friends with Kids The unfortunate thing about modern relationships is that they can start out as Friends with Benefits but usually end up as Friends with Kids.Fortunately, the co-ed companions in this romantic-comedy have never sleep together – until now.When their couple-friends, Missy (Kristen Wiig), Ben (John Ham), Leslie (Maya Rudolph) and Alex (Chris O'Dowd), start having children, Jason (Adam Scott) and Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt), platonic lifelong friends, decide to have one of their own.Opting out of a complicated relationship, the two date other people: Jason with the youth Mary Jane (Megan Fox) and Julie with a mature divorced dad (Ed Burns).But it's not until their arrangement is called into question that they to take their unique situation seriously.While the pejorative overtones concerning marriage are astute, this movie's flippant attitude towards childrearing is not.Furthermore, this is exactly why women should only impregnate themselves with their gay friend's sperm.
The movie stars Westfeldt and Adam Scott as Julie and Jason, longtime best friends who surround themselves with married friends that have (are you ready for this) KIDS!; what do you know!
Jason (Adam Scott) and Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt, doing an excellent job of directing and writing) are best friends who decide to make their own baby while still being in the market for love.
The film is much wittier and more entertaining than the usual romantic comedy fare but it does fall in to a lot of the same conventional traps, by it's conclusion.Westfeldt plays Julie and Scott plays Jason, two friends who have been best friends for years but have no romantic or sexual interests in each other (supposedly).
Westfeldt did base the movie on her and Hamm's experiences with their real friends, as they all started having kids, and still got some of them to star in the film with them.
The characters seemed real, the jokes were funny - everything worked for the movie.Adam Scott (liked him in 'Parks & Recreation') & Jennifer Westfeldt are perfect in their roles.
However the film is also packed with other characters, which once again remind us of Harry and Sally's types of friends: these are all people rooted into the real world, instantly recognisable to anyone struggling to find love before the clock runs out, anyone dating, anyone who's been married for a long time, anyone who's had kids or who's about to have some.
Like in the real world, there's no black and white here: each relationship in the film feels true, people are not simply bad or good, they fall in and out of love, they come and go in and out of your life.
Funny moments are sparse, while opportunities for the director/screenwriter to remind you that the leads are better liberals than you (regardless of your political persuasion) are bountiful (and exist for no apparent reason).All in all, the plot was boring, the ending predictable and the supporting actors used (Jon Hamm, Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig) had their talents wasted on a trivial plot that barely manages to make anyone laugh or care.The only real spoiler for this movie is that it's neither funny nor good..
It then settles down to a circle of friends, 2 couples plus Jason (Adam Scott) and Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt) who are very close friends who know each other too well to have a sexual relationship.The film flash forwards 4 years.
Scott and Westfeldt do well in the parts of the couple that are best friends but obviously would develop feelings from having a kid together, and the supporting cast members, especially O'Dowd with a good American accent, are good choices as well, the script and direction by Westfeldt is witty and well-paced, obviously it is predicable most of the time, but it is funny and cheesy in a good way, a worthwhile romantic comedy.
At first, they claim the relationship will be strictly platonic, but then the movie turns into a romantic comedy and you know what ends up happening.There are a few very good moments in Friends with Kids.