COMIC DRAMA; 1hr 47min
STARRING: Adam Scott, Jennifer Westfeldt, John Hamm, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Chris O’Dowd
Oh baby: Scott and Westfeldt
Babies can be a buzz kill — ask any over-it parent. So the way clucky Jason and Julie (Scott and Westfeldt) see it, having a child together as the most excellent of friends will embrace the positives of parenthood while steering clear of marital blahs and leaving the field open for Mr and Ms Right. Their jaded friends (Hamm, Wiig, Rudolph and O’Dowd), who have chosen the thorny married-with-kids path, are sceptical, and why not? For 30-plus, professionally thriving New Yorkers, these two have a lot of life-learning to do, right?
Right. Managing baby Joe is easy-peasy. But that always-grey emotional area shapes up as distinctly cloudy. The complications — in the shape of Megan Fox and Ed Burns — are nothing outside of the box in this assured Westfeldt-written and -directed relationship shuffle; then again, snappy ensemble pieces aren’t out to shake or stir. Their strength is the savvy crispness of the writing and the skill with which the actors carry it off. Until a clumsy final third lets them down, these guys are just great, moving through light and shade without a single misstep.
