Friends with Kids (2011)

Friends with Kids: Directed by Jennifer Westfeldt. With Adam Scott, Jennifer Westfeldt, Maya Rudolph, Chris O’Dowd. Two best friends decide to have a child together while keeping their relationship platonic, so they can avoid the toll kids can take on romantic relationships.

“This was my girlfriendu0026#39;s choice of film but, while not a film I would have chosen, I didnu0026#39;t mind seeing it due to the long list of likable names in the cast. The plot opens with an u0026quot;anti-coupleu0026quot; couple who talk intimately and openly as a longterm couple would, but do so without any connection and while pursuing other relationships. When all their friends start having children, Julie decides she also wants one but without all the damage it does to the relationship – so she decided to have a kid with Jason, so that there is no relationship to go sour. The rest of the film pretty much goes where you know it will.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe best thing to say about the film is that it does have a real pace to its dialogue and I liked some of the snappy delivery and tone of it, some of it being funny but just generally it had a good rhythm to it. This, I liked. Problem is that the rest of the film really doesnu0026#39;t do much that works particularly well. For me it wasnu0026#39;t u0026quot;badu0026quot; just weak, but this was because I didnu0026#39;t hate the characters quit as much as I can imagine that some will. They are hard to like and it doesnu0026#39;t help that the plot is built around a device that requires them to be narcissistic, selfish and spoilt for the vast majority of the running time. They have some changes in their characters late in the game (the changes you know the anti-couple will have from the moment the first scene finishes) but by the time these changes occur, youu0026#39;ve probably given up caring about these spoilt unlikeable people.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThe cast keep that at bay for a while – although I was a bit behind from the start because I found both Scott and Westfeldt to be the least of the cast – a problem considering they are the leads. Hamm, Wiig, Rudolph have the charisma to carry some of the busier scenes but I have no idea why they had Ou0026#39;Dowd doing an American accent that is terrible (when he keeps it up long enough to notice). Fox, Burns and a few others add starry names but not too much else.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eFriend with Kids has some energy to it and at times the snap of the dialogue is entertaining but the film can never get away from its main problem which is that the core plot and characters are both predictable and hard to like. These two things combine to limit how interested the viewer is in the film and with fewer laughs than there should be, there isnu0026#39;t much beyond the famous faces and snappy delivery to hold the interest.”