FRIENDS WITH KIDS (Jennifer Westfeldt, 2012)

-

You know how it's going to end, but you watch it anyway for the sake of the emotional journey. FRIENDS WITH KIDS is written, starred, and directed by Jennifer Westfeldt (her directorial debut) about two friends (Westfeldt and Adam Scott) who mutually decide to have a baby, without the marital responsibility and/or social expectations. The premise seem ridiculous, but as the film progresses the idea becomes clear with reason, and the results are often hilarious leading to a realization of some universal truth about family, love and relationships.

Also co-starring BRIDESMAIDS alumnus Maya Rudolph, Chris O' Dowd, Kristen Wiig, and Jon Hamm (Westfeldt's real-life partner), FRIENDS WITH KIDS stylishly brands humor about a very sensitive and serious subject (having a baby and actually raise it), and through mockeries and sarcasms the subject is actually put into the table for open discussion. However, by the film's third half the tone of the story becomes dead serious, and Westfeldt writes some hard-hitting lines, most especially Adam Scott's rebuttal during the dinner scene where their friend (played by Jon Hamm) strikes some crude remarks about their unusual arrangement to share custody of the baby and still see other people. The issue raised was filled with honesty. What happens when the kid grows up? Sure there's no problem because he's one year old now, but what happens after?  

And FRIENDS WITH KIDS ought to be seen, if only for that brief moment where we see Kristen Wiig cry onscreen. That alone is priceless. 

What started out as a bizarre arrangement turned out to be a test of friendship, and what's remarkable is that Westfeldt presented her story as truthful and grounded as possible, that married people and circle of friends will not remain married to each other and friends forever, and yet a portion of the shared experience remains- birthdays, weekend getaways, dinners- those are indelible moments. 

More of these intelligently-written and executed comedies, please. 

RATING: 5/5

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

ANINO SA LIKOD NG BUWAN (Jun Lana, 2015)

-
Image
* English title "Shadow behind the Moon" The best term to describe Jun Lana's latest film would be a cinematic charade- a game of identities, of motives, of suppressed passions, and of uncertainty. Or the film equivalent of a Russian doll, if you will. "Anino sa Likod ng Buwan" only has three characters- husband and wife Nando (Anthony Falcon) and Emma (LJ Reyes) and military man Joel (Luis Alandy). What started as a seemingly routine banter among friends gradually and intensely escalated into an examination of society, where the definition of immorality is blurred during a time of insurgency.  And in fact, the film does discuss the subject of immorality from various paradigms. When does adultery become acceptable, and to whom? Is sexual liberation more heinous than murder? Why is immorality always a double standard? The film plays out the ideas in endless games. Or are they really games at all? Lana could have stopped there, but he didn...
Read more

TUHOG (Jeffrey Jeturian)

-
Image
Film within a film-structured movies are always interesting watch. Not only do they provide a much-needed deconstruction of form and content of cinema itself, but also that much-needed emotional punch a cinephile would surely love.  Like in BAD EDUCATION (Almodovar, 2004), we witness the characters tell the back story via montage, as if we are part of the cast of characters watching an actual movie. The form was successful in evoking pain and regret, and also of empathy. In TUHOG, Jeffrey Jeturian and screenwriter Bing Lao tackles sensational media in the Philippines, especially in cinema. The film opens as a film producer hears a pitch for a possible movie- a story of a grandfather who rapes his own granddaughter.  The director of the film soon after visits the victim of the crime, Floring (Ina Raymundo). Coercing both she and her mother, Perla (Irma Adlawan) to sell them the movie rights to their story, we witness as exploitation cinema unfolds. To think of it, capitaliz...
Read more

BIGKIS (Neal Tan, 2014)

-
Image
As an advocacy film, BIGKIS (INTERTWINED) gets its message across. The state of maternal healthcare in the Philippines is downright depressing, with mothers seated on the floor of public hospitals due to shortage of beds, medical equipment and hospital staff. The baby better be gaping through the birth canal before the mother receives serious medical attention.  Such social issue has been featured countless times in local documentaries and even in a feature film (2011's BAHAY BATA), but BIGKIS pushes the envelope further by bridging a connection between mother and child by means of breastfeeding, and in doing so, promoting breastfeeding in the process.  As a drama, the film tends to squeeze too much tragedy from the downtrodden lives of its characters that a lot of the dialogue feels staged for us to feel sorry for their countless miseries. Mariel (LJ Reyes), a teenage mother deals with an unwanted pregnancy and worse, the abandonment of her baby's father (Pancho ...
Read more