Overrated

A Brilliant Conflict

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

If you're interested in the topic at hand, you should just watch it and judge yourself because the reviews have gone very biased by people that didn't even watch it and just hate (or love) the creator. I liked it, it was well written, narrated, and directed and it was about a topic that interests me.

"Friends With Kids" is a typical rom-com/chick flick for the modern age. It features a modern twist on a relationship: two people who only love each other as friends decide to have a kid between them after seeing what the standard marriage-and-children debacle has done to their friends.The casting of dependable comic actors like Chris O'Dowd and Kristen Wiig makes you anticipate at least some sort of ensemble of memorable characters, or even memorable scenes with these actors, but the movie delivers none. They just fight constantly to make it abundantly clear why the main characters take a different route. It feels like a rip-off that you're stuck with Adam Scott and Jennifer Westfeldt in a movie with O'Dowd and Wiig.Adam Scott is a good actor, but I wasn't sure how to take his turn as a serial womanizer who ends up with the surgically enhanced Megan Fox on his arm. He has a certain smarmy charm, but is he a ladykiller?And Westfeldt? Well, if you haven't heard of her (I hadn't) I don't think that's likely to change any time soon.The movie could have at least been an example of a filmic version of an alternative relationship, but then the ending bottles it in the most clichéd possible way. If you read the first paragraph of this review, you already guessed how it ends.Move along, nothing to see here.

There should be an award for 'Can Do It All'.... writer, producer, director, star. And should she not win, it would have taken one hell of an effort to best her. With immense talent matching her beauty, Jennifer Westfeldt .. bit.ly/1aFOGRy .. is one very impressive individual (and watch her in Ira & Abby to get a better idea of the range of her acting ability). Friends with Kids is a film for grown ups that is really enjoyable to watch, and it's one of the best films I've seen in quite some time (with one of the best ten minute endings of any romantic comedy/drama). You can watch a whole bunch of rom-com's and not enjoy near any as much as this one.

Little to redeem this completely unfunny attempt to define romance or commitment for the "hook-up" generation. Imagine the closing scene in Jerry Maguire and replace the lines "You complete me" or "You had me at Hello" with "F**k the sh*t out of me". Really. This is what passes for romance these days I guess. I have kids, I've watched marriages fail. I was ready to see the pain and humor in the challenges of keeping the passion alive while changing diapers. But this lazy, self-absorbed movie never gets past superficial, cynical character development. The writers' and director's guiding question seems to be "How do you make a marriage feel more like a one-night stand?" This so-called "romantic comedy" was neither.

Pros: -This movie is very well shot, directed, and filmed. -The characters are real and engaging. -GREAT supporting cast. -The premise is dumb and common, and from the first scene you know exactly what kind of movie this is and where it is going, but the script itself is pretty damn fine, and keeps things intelligent and lively.Cons:-There's not much to Julie other than her character sketch. When she could show some personality and engage with the audience, she disintegrates into Ally McBeal-esque stuttering. Of course we want Jason to like her, but whereas we see a lot of who Jason is as a person, with Julie we have to take a lot of things on faith. When Jason has his first little Jerry Maguire speech at the ski lodge and talks about how they have similar taste and ideas about everything, I wasn't convinced that Julie hadn't just led him to believe that in the way people will chameleon for the person they're interested in, because all I knew about Julie even by that point was that she was young and successful and had nice hair.-2 or 3 different Jerry Maguire-esque speeches.-Adam Scott isn't really believable as the super-lothario he's supposed to be. -The premise itself is insipid. -The "Boy-loses-girl" moment is so huge that there's no believable possibility of recovery.-Awkward insertions of atheism, which are distracting.