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What to Expect When You're Expecting poster

CAST
ELIZABETH BANKS
CHACE CRAWFORD
BROOKLYN DECKER
CAMERON DIAZ
BEN FALCONE
ROB HUEBEL
ANAA KENDRICK
THOMAS LENNON
JENNIFER LOPEZ
JOE MANGANIELLO
MATTHEW MORRISON
DENNIS QUAID
CHRIS ROCK
RODRIGO SANTORO
AMIR TALAI
REBEL WILSON

BASED ON THE BOOKS BY
HEIDI MURKOFF

SCREENPLAY BY
SHAUNA CROSS
HEATHER HACH

PRODUCED BY
MIKE MEDAVOY
ARNOLD MESSLER
DAVID THWAITES

DIRECTED BY
KIRK JONES

GENRE
COMEDY
ROMANCE

RATED
AUS: M
UK: 12A
USA: PG-13

RUNNING TIME
110 MIN

 

WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE EXPECTING (2012)

A rom-com of little joy, What to Expect When You’re Expecting is too busy introducing the next celebrity than establishing story and continues to see Hollywood portray pregnancy as a 9 month farce.

Ever since Ellen Page strapped on the baby bump in Juno producers have gone pregnancy mad in hopes to repeat that success. Yet over and over they have failed to make anything substantial about the creation and arrival of new life. There are too many jokes about morning sickness and flinging baby poo, too many characters arcs focusing on irresponsible men finally resuming the mantle of fatherhood, and (most disturbingly) too much focus on pregnancy as a burden of unwelcome horrors.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting features all of these elements and more. It’s based on the popular manual (perhaps the first time a film has been based on one) which millions of soon to be parents have turned to as an educational tool and covers every facet of the pregnancy process.

As a result What to Expect… the movie is packed with multiple characters dealing with all types of baby making. There are five different storylines to be exact and only 1 ½ is worth the price of admission.  

Much like the Gary Marshall directed rom-coms Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve, the cast of What to Expect… is filled with attractive actors that bring nothing more than star power to their roles. There is Cameron Diaz who plays a celebrity fitness guru who juggles her professional and pregnancy lives. Jennifer Lopez as a freelance photographer who is adopting a baby from Kenya (oh, how celebs love to pat themselves on the back). Anna Kendrick and Chace Crawford play hip young lovers whose pregnancy dilemma is resolved so quickly, they seem more like window dressing than a relevant cog in this machine.

The films best moments are delivered by Elizabeth Banks. She plays an expectant mother to be (duh!) whose fantasies of pregnancy bliss are turned on its head. Banks brings much more personality and natural comedic charm compared to her fellow leading actresses, rising above the tawdry material by screenwriters Heather Hach and Shauna Cross, filled with little innovation and an unhealthy obsession with reality TV which Hach and Cross use as a device to connect their characters.  

Fun too is the “dads group” made up of actors such as Chris Rock and Thomas Lennon, a cherry bunch who find solace away from their wives. But again their charms come from their personalities, no the script.

What to Expect… is written by Kirk Jones, who charmed with his debut Waking Ned Devine. Unfortunately, Jones has succumbed to the Hollywood rule of law when it comes to pregnancy on screen: take it over the top.

Pregnancy is a lot of things. It’s joyous, depressing, exciting, worrying, anxious, strange, comical and so on. But above all it’s a normal part of human existence. There is no tricks and exaggeration needed to make it any more interesting than it already is.

The creation of human life is the best show you could ever see and What to Expect… the book is a great guide to that process. However the movie adaptation is a shallow concept piece, lazy in its approach and moronic in its execution.

**
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