Life As We Know It

Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel play best friends of a married couple killed in an auto accident; they’ve been named as joint guardians of the couple’s daughter even though they can’t stand each other. Contrived enough for you? Writers Ian Dietchman and Kristin Rusk Robinson have two credits between them, including this one. Apparently their writing experience to date has been chiefly limited to personal checks and shopping lists; hopefully their handwriting is better than their imaginations. Both the trailer and the first 60 seconds of the movie telegraph everything to come, as if to assure us that no surprises will interfere with our gazing at Katherine and Josh. It would take a much better director than Greg Berlanti to animate this corpse, but a better director would have rejected the awful script.