Knocked Up

Review By: Rocco Passafuime
RoccoPassafuime@TheCinemaSource.com

While most Hollywood comedies of recent years tends to focus more on placating to expectations and bombarding the audience with jokes and gags one after the other, Judd Apatow has proven to be an anomaly in the world of mainstream comedy. While his 2005 directorial debut The 40 Year Old Virgin had humor that was at times painfully and uncomfortably crude, it proved that Apatow not only had more interesting ideas than his comedic contemporaries, but he had a surprising undercurrent of warmth and thoughtfulness for his characters and the story they find themselves in.

Apatow also has an instinctive knack for exploiting underused talent to their greatest potential. He had found that in Virgin with Daily Show cast member and longtime comedy side-player Steve Carell. This time, it’s Virgin side-player Seth Rogan teamed with TV drama regular Katherine Heigl who reach their greatest potential in Judd Apatow’s newest film Knocked Up.

Canadian national Ben Stone (Seth Rogen) is an out-of-work slacker who smokes pot regularly with friends Jason (Jason Segal), Jay (Jay Baruchel), Jonah (Jonah Hill), and Martin (Martin Starr) and runs a nude film screenshot capture web site together as a hobby. Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl) is a producer on the cable network E! who soon decides to go out celebrating after getting a promotion as an on-air correspondent for the channel.

At a club, Ben and Alison meet each other by chance and they soon get drunk together and end up having a one-night stand back at Alison’s place. Alison, who becomes quickly mortified by the man she had engaged in wild dalliances with, receives the shock of her life when she discovers that she is pregnant with her and Ben’s child.

Not wanting to give up her baby, Alison attempts to bond and forge a relationship with the rather crude and unkempt Ben. Despite his pledge to support her, Alison becomes increasingly concerned over the likelihood of their relationship working. She feels this as Alison watches her more strait-laced sister Debbie’s (Leslie Mann) marriage to her increasingly disenchanted and detached husband Pete (Paul Rudd) hit a rocky point.

While the plot this time around is not quite as original as the one in Virgin, Apatow manages to execute it much more brilliantly here. This is mostly due to his signature skill for great characters and relying on loose, organic, true-to-life humor that is often more funny rather than regular cheap laughs.

His penchant for often painfully crude humor and two-hour running time often threatens to mar Knocked Up with the same wild unevenness that plagued his previous outing. However, Apatow’s continued determined focus on story and character development enables Rogen, Heigl, and the cast’s performances to instantly connect with the audience.

Knocked Up hits its strongest points when the film confronts directly with the central themes of the film, ranging from marital fidelity to gender roles to age discrimination. As a result, viewers will be endeared by the film, as well as humored.

While ...