Jack and I both liked this rom-com about straight best friends, female and male, who, after they see their friends' marriages suffer from having children, decide to have a baby together and continue dating other people (Jack didn't respond in the negative when I asked if it's a chick flick). The directing debut of Jennifer Westfeldt (who stars and wrote the script, as well as having co-written and starred in Kissing Jessica Stein (2001) and wrote alone and starred in Ira & Abby (2006)--I didn't see the latter, but it's noteworthy that her character is in the title of each), it's good fun. Her character resembles Jessica Stein in that she is confident in her intelligence, single and unhappy about it, and willing to go to unusual lengths to pursue her dream, in this case, having a baby with her friend rather than holding out for Mr. Right. Mr. Right Now is played by Adam Scott (I wrote about him in The Vicious Kind, but since then he's best known to most as Ben, Leslie's boyfriend, in 40 episodes of Parks and Recreation) and Westfeldt and he have great chemistry together as Julie and Jason. Their hapless married friends, all of whom were in and written about in Bridesmaids, are well-played by Maya Rudolph and Chris O'Dowd (whose Irish accent is gone here) as Leslie and Alex and Kristen Wiig and Jon Hamm (who has been Westfeldt's real-life romantic partner since 1998) as Missy and Ben. Pin-up girl/actress Megan Fox (I didn't mention her when I wrote about How to Lose Friends & Alienate People, but she was definitely in it--here's a sexy photo; I haven't seen any of her other movies or TV shows) plays a woman Jason dates--Ben calls her a funny name in the ski lodge scene--and she's good as the beautiful, bitchy narcissist. Julie also gets to date someone gorgeous: Edward Burns (I loved The Brothers McMullen (1995), which he directed, wrote, and starred, and it won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance; he's done the same with 9 other features, including She's The One (1996) and Sidewalks of New York (2001); and he's done quite a bit of acting in other projects, including Saving Private Ryan (1998) and a series arc as himself on Entourage).
Twelve producers are listed, not many for this day and age, but I mention it because they include Westfeldt and Hamm (in a new production company together), Jake Kasdan (last in these pages for directing Bad Teacher), and Mike Nichols (whom I heard on NPR the other day--can you believe he's 80 years old? Here's a link to read about him and you can also play the podcast; I loved most of the movies Nichols directed: The Graduate (1967), Catch-22 (1970), Carnal Knowledge (1971), Silkwood (1983), Heartburn (1986), Working Girl (1988), Postcards from the Edge (1990), Regarding Henry (1991), The Birdcage (1996), Primary Colors (1998), and Closer (2004) which I mentioned in my post on The Vicious Kind).
On imdb the composer is listed as Marcelo Zarvos (scored both of Westfeldt's previous movies plus a long list that includes The Door in the Floor (2004), Hollywoodland (2006), The Good Shepherd (2006), What Just Happened, Sin Nombre, Please Give, and The Beaver) but on the screen we also saw the group The 88 credited as composers and this list includes five of their songs. No soundtrack appears to be for sale, but I counted 24 songs in the credits (not including Mildred and Patty Hill's Happy Birthday), although this list has only 11, with an overlap of two from the above, including It's a Lot.
Entertainment, not entirely fluff, for a girls' night or a date, this is something you will probably enjoy. It's playing right down the street.
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