What to expect when you’re expecting

Film review: What to expect when you’re expecting

I swore to myself that I wouldn’t do it again and yet here I was hotdog in one hand, popcorn in a bag and water because I like to pretend that by not having the fizzy drink I’m really eliminating the other calories. My solo date is really about eating contraband food disguised as time away from the office.

Yes I had bought my ticket for What to expect when you’re expecting even though I had promised myself I wouldn’t do another ensemble cast / adapted from a self-help book movie. Was He’s not that into you and think like a man not painful enough? Don’t even get me started on Valentine’s Day and that New Year’s Eve nonsense. I was done. Seriously no more.

But then I didn’t want to see Prometheus in 3D and I find going to see anything for kids by yourself just looks like you’re the paedophile on a grooming mission. Take a friend’s kid if you must but don’t go alone. Top Cat wasn’t an option.

Maybe I wanted to see a movie about the trials of impending parenthood. Afterall one day I will be one so it’s research, right. Yes I was sold. I was going to do this. I had never read the book so my expectations were already low.

I’ve had to take a break here as I try to think of something positive to say about this movie….

Ok so first of all there were way too many blondes. I’m not going to lie when they were sweating on the birthing beds they all looked the same to me. I was losing the plot. This wasn’t helped by the poor script which sounded like it was cut and paste from 4 other things we’ve all seen. Remember that scene where Samantha in Sex and the City gives a Cancer speech and takes her wig off? We have one of those epic ‘truth ‘ speeches.  But let’s go back

You had Jules (Cameron Diaz) and Evan (the teacher from Glee who is only slightly less annoying than he is in Glee but only slightly) who are the come dancing pair (With Tweedy chav Cole) as a judge. I knew then that this film and I weren’t going to get on.

Then there’s Holly and Alex (it hurts me that I remember these names!) who are J-Lo and her sometimes Latino accented husband. Never has an accent slipped in and out so much since Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman in Far and Away. They can’t have kids and the ones from Guatamala aren’t available anymore so they adopt from Africa instead because, why not? That’s what financially struggling Americans do apparently.

Then you have the young couple. I think I’m meant to know them from somewhere but I don’t watch Twilight so these two are completely wasted on me. A one night stand gone bad and a cheesy (pig) ending.

There’s Gary Cooper who used to be fat and his wife who have been trying for two years but then pregnancy comes and it’s harder than they thought. Gary’s dad, played by Dennis Quaid and his new wife born in 1986 were mildly amusing. Have I forgotten a blonde? Oh yes Miss 1986 is blonde.

So that’s your cast. I’m tired and bored already. You have the dudes group led by Chris Rock which meet in the park every Saturday with their kids to escape their wives and just parent without being judged. Nice cameo from Joe Manganiello, the guy who plays Alcide in True Blood. Finally, some real eye candy.

So the major problems were too many story lines trying to be funny or emotional and failing, too many blondes and way too many messages about how hard pregnancy and parenthood are. I think it was meant to be a comedy but it was bloody depressing. And then they got all schmaltzy about it. There was not a wet eye in that cinema.

My advice? This should have been straight to DVD and I love me some rom com so my standards aren’t exactly high. The tenuous links were trite and dull. Watch it at your own peril. I’m off to find someone to get pregnant from. Apparently drunken park sex or sex on a car will do it. That’s all I learned.

© Chelsea Black