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www.planetnotion.com |
| KNOCKED UP |
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| 13/09/2007 |
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 KNOCKED UP
CINEMA
OUT NOW
It’s the age-old story; successful upwardly mobile television presenter (Katherine Heigl) goes to nightclub, gets pissed, has unprotected sex with roly-poly acerbic jewish stoner (Seth Rogen) and gets up the spout. It sounds more like horror than comedy, but this is the premise of the new film from ‘40 Year Old Virgin’ writer/director Judd Apatow. The press release accompanying the screening talked of Apatow’s ‘consistent ability to take awkward situations we face in our own lives and mine them for optimal laugh-out-loud reactions’ – yet I found this scenario difficult to relate to. This is probably because I am what’s known as ‘middle class’; thereby making me immune from accidentally impregnating people, or indeed consequences in general.
The trouble with ‘Knocked Up’ is that it does not know whether it is a romantic comedy or a gross-out frat pack caper, and the two elements do not always sit well together. To be fair, the film has some very funny moments - a heated exchange with a disenchanted bouncer and a mushroom-induced fascination with five different types of chair are both hysterical, as is Heigl and Rogen’s attempt to have sex without harming their unborn child. Yet it lacks a central comedic powerhouse performance that the likes of Steve Carrell and Will Ferrell afford these types of films, and Rogen, whilst certainly funny, lacks the frenetic energy to carry it alone.
Ultimately, ‘Knocked Up’ seems to promote the idea that if you are an overweight loser and you manage to drunkenly inseminate a beautiful girl, then eventually she will fall in love with you and you’ll get to keep her. I would test the theory out myself but, of course, that sort of thing would literally never happen to me… |