Knocked Up - PASS

*Some rather pregnant spoilers.

I don't mean to turn this into Katherine Heigl mondays, but after a friend told me about a Vanity Fair interview where Heigl states Knocked Up is sexist towards women, and then went on to make the pile of shit that is 27 Dresses, the reviewing of Knocked Up seemed both necessary and inevitable. While obviously Heigl has the right to critique her own work, this is just too hypocritical to let pass (if you recall, it was also Heigl who withdrew her name from the Emmy nominations pool because she felt the Grey's Anatomy writers hadn't done her justice).

But back to Knocked Up: Alison (Heigl) goes out to celebrate a promotion at E! with her sister Debbie (Leslie Mann) and meets Ben (Seth Rogen). After Debbie leaves, Alison and Ben proceed to drink themselves silly, go back to her place (which is some kind of guesthouse in Debbie's yard) and have drunken, condom-less sex, the latter of which is a misunderstanding. Eight weeks later, Alison is puking and pregnant. She calls Ben--who's nothing like anything she'd want, as his idea of a job is working on his Celebrity Skin website and is constantly high--and the two begin their slow and steady nine month journey in which they fall in love, fight, talk about marriage, double in size, smoke pot, and have a baby. Knocked Up reminds me of a quote from the great columnist Dan Savage: the best, committed relationship you will ever have is the one night stand that sticks. Neither Alison nor Ben expected this kind of development, and it's what inevitably brings them together.

Notably, Alison considers abortion but obviously doesn't go through with it, but Ben has no say in the matter. Nor does Alison go through giving up her career as an on-camera host at E!. Of course, throughout the movie she does go through her slightly crazy spurts of over-protective motheringness, but isn't that to be expected from someone carrying a child? Is it really considered bitchy to ask that if your boyfriend wants to help support the relationship, that he stop smoking weed all the time and get a job? And is it just 'goofy and fun-loving' for guys to blow off their families and do shrooms in Vegas? Nope. Knocked Up is about growing up, and both Alison and Debbie get their healthy dose of reality at a club while Alison is pregnant.

Knocked Up paints these characters and relationships in such a way that is both comical and really quite balanced. The women aren't shrews, and the men aren't free-loaders. I liked Alison quite a lot---she's a bit unconventional in terms of reality, with deciding to break up with Ben and raise the baby by herself and to keep on with her career. If that's not something independent and empowering, I don't know what is. Debbie, her sister, is a bit more tightly wound after two children, but she still seems a free spirit and speaks her mind in her marriage about it's flaws--better than repressing it and pretending everything is a-okay, in my opinion. Both Alison and Debbie have their own minds about things, and they're interested in relationships, not roles. And so are the two men--Pete (Paul Rudd), Debbie's husband, and Ben are a bit archetypal as men shouldered with burdens. They smoke weed, do drugs, and cling to youth and cool like it's the last thing they have to live for. Ben, at least, does not resign himsef to the role of father but at least has some realization of his place in the world.


Between gynecological antics and bong hits, Knocked Up still has time for some non-guy oriented conversation between Debbie and Allison, which rates this movie a pass in terms of the Bechdel test. At the very least, Knocked Up is quite superior to it's Heigl successor 27 Dresses, with its comical and introspective look at man-woman relationships.