A pleasant surprise

I had my reservations about seeing Knocked Up. A comedy about a hot chick drunkenly hooking up with a sloppy loser, getting pregnant and then trying to “make it work” sounded so tired and lame. The fact that it was written and directed by Judd Apatow, the guy who made The 40-Year-Old Virgin, made it mildly more attractive.

Somehow, Apatow pulls off this smart, funny adult comedy about parenthood—apparently taking off where The 40-Year-Old Virgin left off. The clincher, for me, is that the film doesn’t try too hard to be funny. It doesn’t rely on slapstick humor and clichés. Instead, it takes a novel approach—it’s honest.

What would you do if you were Alison, a hot young thing recently promoted to on-air interviewer on E! and after a night of celebrating and hard drinking, you wake up next to a not-so-hot guy, who seems nice enough but doesn’t have more than a couple hundred bucks to his name? To top it off, you’re forced to contact him when you find out you’re carrying his seed.

The film follows the transformation of Alison (Katherine Heigl, Grey’s Anatomy) and the baby’s daddy, Ben (Seth Rogen), with their respective support systems. Alison has her sister (Leslie Mann) and her sister’s husband (Paul Rudd), who support her but also serve as an example of what married life can be like (not so glamorous). Ben lives with a bunch of single, 20-something dweebs whose idea of work is getting stoned and creating a Web site documenting the films—and how far along into those films—in which famous actresses get nekkid.

Despite a little dumb humor and shock-value cussing, the comedy is definitely a notch above The 40-Year-Old Virgin, allowing it to be both funny and address a complex subject with a degree of emotional depth. What a pleasant surprise.