What separates the films and television series of Judd Apatow from the romantic-comedy epidemic is a single word: growth. Apatow’s works spend enough time with their characters, main and supporting, so that we can sincerely laugh with them and understand their decisions. It goes for his oeuvre overall as well: from the troubles of teenagers (Freaks & Geeks) to the pre-paranoia of college life (Undeclared) to the struggle of leaving your youth behind (The 40-Year-Old Virgin), Apatow builds, thematically, with each project. And that’s how we finally come to Knocked Up.
Ben (Seth Rogen) holds on to drugs and buffoonery the way Andy in Virgin held on to childhood/teenage obsession. He spends his days smoking cannabis, making herpes jokes with his roommates and marking when celebrities get naked in films for a forthcoming website, FleshoftheStars.com. At a local club he meets Alison (Katherine Heigl), a newly promoted correspondent for the E! network. After a fumbling flirtation and a bevy of drinks, Ben and Alison return to her sister’s guesthouse, willing and ready to make a mistake. That mistake blooms, after eight weeks, into an unexpected pregnancy, forcing Ben into adulthood and Alison into a relationship that mirrors her sister Debbie’s (Apatow’s wife Leslie Mann) marriage to Pete (the reliable Paul Rudd).
Nothing about Ben and Alison’s relationship is admirably romantic yet it has a sincere sweetness to it. He thinks she is a queen and she thinks he is an adorable screw-up, but there is no moment of concession that they were written in the stars. The pregnancy got them together and keeps them together because he is reliable and nice while she is understanding and loving. Their relationship isn’t perfect, just perfectly modern.
The film’s humour and eventual triumph stem from the fact that nothing is set up. These are just honest, funny characters that like to laugh as much as we do. The reason for this partially comes from Apatow’s ability to pack the best comedic actors into his films, even for the bit parts. Besides a never-better Rogen and a loosened-up Heigl, Apatow alumni Martin Starr, Jason Segel, Jay Baruchel, and Harold Ramis (brilliantly cast as Ben’s father) make generous contributions.
The heart of the film blooms from the family dynamic Apatow creates in his candid, clear-eyed approach to life’s absurd mysteries. And it is in the blood: Apatow’s daughters play Alison’s nieces with deft comic timing. Even funnier is the way the film constantly refers to Spider-Man 3, another 2007 movie about growing up, albeit a terrible one. But Apatow refers to it more as a common thread than a modern marker. At first, a character rushes to see it and then another is heartbroken her husband didn’t wait to see it with her. It is a small moment that explains Apatow’s universe: adult misfits running away to their hobbies to hide from their women and their responsibilities, rather than attempting to share. Apatow knows growing up is rough but he wants to understand it. This kind of lofty ambition seem to have been largely banished from romantic comedies but, here, it gives Knocked Up an honest timelessness.
Chris Cabin |
