Review: What To Expect When You're Expecting

EXPECTED BETTER: Surely a film about birth should be able to offer something of interest, but not this one.

REVIEW: Basing a film on a bestselling book is never a bad idea. Name recognition and brand loyalty are built in before you are even trying to flog the finished project.

That, surely, can't be a bad thing when the multiplexes are filling up with product, and perfectly decent and watchable films struggle to find a screen, let alone an audience.

But a baby-raising manual? Really? A book that doesn't have a storyline? Oh well, all power to them, because here it is, and even the weekday mid-morning session I sat through had 20 or more in the audience, a few of whom even sounded as though they were enjoying themselves.

The film is a classic multi-plot ensemble piece. Think Richard Curtis's Love Actually as a basic boilerplate. But here the love has actually happened, and the stories are all set during the following nine months.

There are a lot of thoroughly decent people, all of them in couples – a few characters spend the night on the couch, but no single parents are allowed here – and all of them facing their impending parenthood with some minor and pretty inconsequential challenge of character to be resolved by the final reel.

Jennifer Lopez and Rodrigo Santoro are the outliers here. Unable to conceive, they are hoping to adopt an Ethiopian orphan.

And so What to Expect When You're Expecting rolls on. The film opens with an excerpt from a reality TV show, and that is a decent enough indicator of the level it is pitched at. The "drama" is about TV sitcom standard, the emotional journeys of the characters fairly scream "tune in next week, when you'll see the same rubbish played out all over again", and I've read better and more incisive dialogue in a cartoon speech bubble or a Facebook status update.

About halfway through the film, I began to hope for something to happen to derail these self-regarding mechanical schlubs high-fiving and pilates-ing their way towards the maternity wards (no home births allowed either).

Then, there actually is a miscarriage. Cue the rain, an abrupt shift in the colour grade, and a few brief blessed moments when What to Expect began to look like an actual film.

It doesn't last, of course, and the couple left childless is the one you would expect.

What To Expect When You're Expecting
Runtime: 110min
Rated: M
Director: Kirk Jones.
Starring: Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Anna Kendrick, Dennis Quaid.

- © Fairfax NZ News