BEFORE: Josh Lucas AND Jean Smart carry over from "Sweet Home Alabama" - this is another film that's optional, I could drop it and just go ahead with another Jean Smart film, but since it's not needed to make a vital connection next year AND because I dropped one film by choice and another because it would have cost $4.99 to include, I'm going to proceed with it. Plus it seems to be on theme with this week's other programming. And just one more week until I can link to something different, here's hoping. This one pops up on cable every so often, I've passed on it a number of times, and it's about to disappear again for a while (probably) so let me watch it while it's available on demand so I can have the captions on the screen.
And just two days left in the TCM "31 Days of Oscar" event after tomorrow, Friday the 13th, which is day 29. The themes will be "Oscar Goes to the Coast" and "Oscar Goes to Bat":
6:30 am "Min and Bill" (1930)
8:45 am "Topper Takes a Trip" (1939)
9:15 am "Beneath the 12-Mile Reef" (1953)
11:15 am "Woman in the Dunes" (1964)
2:00 pm "Mystery Street" (1950)
4:00 pm "Summer of '42" (1971)
4:00 pm "Summer of '42" (1971)
6:00 pm "The Sandpiper" (1965)
8:00 pm "Field of Dreams" (1989)
10:00 pm "Bull Durham" (1988)
12:00 am "Bang the Drum Slowly" (1973)
1:45 am "The Pride of the Yankees" (1942)
4:00 am "The Stratton Story" (1949)
Clearly this is TCM's last chance to get rid of some junky films before the big finish - I've only seen three of these, "The Sandpiper", "Field of Dreams" and "Bull Durham", and I hate the beach and I hate the Yankees, so really, I'm OK with being out of the loop here. This takes me to 135 films seen out of 329, or still 41%.
THE PLOT: Two single adults become caregivers to an orphaned girl when their mutual best friends die in an accident.
AFTER: At some point, the makers of these romantic comedies must have been under some pressure to break out of the old, antiquated formulas - boy meets girl (or vice versa), they date, they fool around, they get married, they have a kid or two, they get divorced, repeat as necessary. Sure, it's tried and true, but is it even accurate in the modern times where it's just as often girl meets girl or boy meets boy, or people use dating sites to have sex without dating (or dating without sex)? Plus we've got people on TV reality shows getting engaged to people in other countries, basically putting marriage before in-person dating. Then you've got others in thrupples, poly-situations, not to mention whatever "Sister Wives" was. So perhaps with both reality shows and internet technology, relationships just became a whole different ball game.
The reaction from screenwriters was seen in "Fools Rush In", I think, where somebody tried to shuffle the order by having the one-night-stand that leads to pregnancy, then showing a couple jumping right into marriage without even really taking the time to date or get to know each other. Well, how's that going to work out? They may even get divorced and then fall back in love at the very same time, as weird as that sounds, that movie almost made it seem possible. The same director gave us "Sweet Home Alabama", where a woman got married, separated and then engaged again, without really taking the time legally required to get divorced in-between. I'm sure that's happened to somebody, maybe not in that exact same way, but with a generation of people who want what they want WHEN they want it and don't want to follow society's "rules", we're bound to have a little re-organization of the traditional timeline.
So we come to "Life as We Know It", where a car accident orphans a toddler, and two people who maybe were YEARS away from being competent parents find themselves thrown into that role. They want to do what's right for the baby, but neither one has been through the proper steps, as in finding the right partner, learning how to compromise and communicate, and in one case, learning how to adult. Holly owns and operates a bakery, so she's at least got team leadership skills, time management skills, one assumes some understanding about finances, and probably can cook a decent breakfast - it's just her love life that's not moving forward. On the other hand we have Eric, or Messer as he prefers, he's got relationship experience to spare, just nothing long-term, and doesn't stack up as well when it comes to being responsible. Neither one has child-raising experience, and in fact neither one was made aware that being a godparent is more than just an honorary title, if both parents should die then they might be called upon to determine what's best for the baby, at least from a legal standpoint.
It's almost a little too sit-commy here, two people whose lives change overnight, with plenty of chances to consider all the things that could go wrong with this scenario. What's it going to mean to decide what's best for little Sophie, will they have to LIVE in the Novaks' house, just because that's what they baby is used to, upending both of their personal (and eventually professional) lives just to fulfill the duty that they unwittingly agreed to? Well, of course, because that would be the most chaotic, creative and hopefully comedic outcome to hope for. What happens when Holly finally connects with a potential life-mate, but she's in this weird co-habitation thing with a male roommate, because baby? What happens when Messer is offered his dream job, directing basketball game TV coverage but for a team in another city? Does he have to turn that down, also because baby? Just how much of people's lives have to be sacrificed once there's a baby in their care? Trick question, it's all of it.
Meanwhile, it's not TOO much of a stretch to imagine that two people, living side-by-side, sort of playing house, even if they dated once and that date failed spectacularly, have then spent a couple years in each other's orbits because their best friends were married to each other. Sure, they can't stand each other, but maybe they can build on that, as ridiculous as that sounds. The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference, so if there wasn't SOME type of small spark there, they wouldn't be able to work together and experience the joys of feeding a baby, changing a baby, and figuring out when a baby needs medical attention. Don't worry, there's a 12-year old babysitter they can call on for help as well as a large group of helpful and nosy neighbors on the block.
That being said, the road ahead is a minefield, what with all the bodily functions a baby has, childproofing the house for a baby that can suddenly walk around, and those unannounced visits from the CPS representative which of course happen at the worst possible times. Coordinating their sleeping schedules is hard enough, but then they're both trying to maintain their jobs, and even a big calendar on the wall can't quite keep up with the changing schedule of an NBA team - I can actually verify this last point, there are potentially emergency make-up games late in the season if say, there was a blizzard or something. But this is set in Atlanta, so maybe it's not that likely.
Thankfully the parents' estate covered the mortgage on the house, but this non-couple still needs to pay for baby supplies, baby food, and the utilities. As they were single people living in apartments, maintaining a big house could be another sudden challenge. Holly was going to expand her bakery business and add on cafe seating, but this is suddenly impossible, unless Eric uses his savings to invest in her business. Finally they seem to be on the same page, and that's when they start to get romantic, and now there's real danger involved once they have sex, because now everything is personal. When Eric doesn't tell her about his job offer, and then Holly doesn't tell him she's thinking of selling the house, it's clear that they're at odds again. Sure, she's finally clear to date that doctor, and he's finally clear to move to Phoenix, but is that what they both want?
Or, you know, does their backwards way of doing things somehow make more sense, by not making sense? Was their initial first date just a case of right place, wrong time? Or did living together for a year change them both in such a way that their very unusual living arrangement came to feel very normal? You probably can guess the answers to all of that.
Directed by Greg Berlanti (director of "Fly Me to the Moon" and "Love, Simon")
Also starring Katherine Heigl (last seen in "One for the Money"), Josh Duhamel (last seen in "The Show"), Hayes MacArthur (last seen in "Dear Santa"), Christina Hendricks (last seen in "I Don't Know How She Does It"), Sarah Burns (last seen in "Desperados"), Jessica St. Clair (last seen in "Like a Boss"), Brooke Liddell (last seen in "The Night Before"), Kiley Liddell (ditto), Britt Flatmo (last seen in "Super 8"), Rob Huebel (last seen in "Barely Lethal"), Melissa McCarthy (last seen in "Unfrosted"), DeRay Davis (last seen in "The Fog" (2005)), Kumail Nanjiani (last seen in "The Lovebirds"), Andy Daly (last seen in "Mountainhead"), Bill Brochtrup (last seen in "He's Just Not That Into You"), Will Sasso (last seen in "Drop Dead Gorgeous"), Majandra Delfino, Jason MacDonald (last seen in "The Naked Gun"), Wilbur Fitzgerald (ditto), Tara Ochs (last seen in "Allegiant"), Melissa Ponzio (last seen in "Thunder Force"), Reggie Lee (last seen in "Sweet Girl"), Markus Flanagan (last seen in "Biloxi Blues"), Brooke Josephson (last seen in "Disenchanted"), Chan Ta Rivers, Eric Phillips, Andy Buckley (last seen in "A Million Little Pieces"), L. Warren Young (last seen in "Daddy's Little Girls"), Johanna Jowett, Jody Thompson (also last seen in "Sweet Home Alabama"), Rob Nagle (last heard in "Blonde"), Patricia French (last seen in "Poms"), Amir Kovacs (last seen in "The Blind Side"), Alexis Clagett, Brynn Clagett, Brooke Clagett, with a cameo from Steve Nash.
RATING: 5 out of 10 pot brownies
No comments:
Post a Comment