KNOCKED UP
Knocked Up (2006), dir Judd Apatow, starring Seth Rogan, Katherine Heigl
‘Knocked Up’ appears to be a gentle, charming comedy about parenthood but is infested with all kinds of horribleness, double standards, hypocrisy that belies its apparent surface. Ben Stone ‘knocks up’ Alison during a one night stand after a night’s clubbing. Essentially the film piles up allusions, euphemisms in order to distract away from its essential derivativeness but also the hypocritical attitudes, regarding sex, marriage, babies, that the film panders to. At one point Ben is watching Steve Martin in the film ‘Parenthood’ on one of those big monitor hotel television sets that resemble fish tanks more than television sets, referencing the last dire Hollywood attempt to discourse about (something that perhaps Hollywood needs to do more than anything) growing up. This was one of Martin’s direst efforts but even paplike that is at least two notches higher than ‘KnockedUp’. Ben and Alison have fornicated without really knowingeach other very well, if at all, and the result is that Alison becomes pregnant (‘knocked up’). Alison (played by Katherine Heigl), an unpleasant,controlling person and a careerist, who is being lined up to be a television presenter of some kind. In some of the more unreal and ludicrous scenes in the film, the television companies director discusses ideas about her shows. Ben (played by Seth Rogan) is a kinder, more rounded character, portrayed in the film as a kind of waster, explaining to Alison how sex doggy style has nothing to do with dogs but is really only another sex position. Alison is utterly shocked by the suggestion that Ben and she do it ‘doggystyle’, even though she was formerly unperturbed about having sex on a one-night stand with a total stranger (at the start of the film when she was ‘knocked up’).But even though Ben is a little bit more pleasant than Alison, it is still quite obvious that he is a stinker. As is this film. There is one word that sums up this turgid mass of nonsense: vomit. Another one is puke. Alison is overcome by horror and sadness at the prospect of bearing Ben’s sprog. Ben is too, but he feels dutiful and responsible. The one other option open to the couple, abortion, is never considered, although it seems the only way forward toa couple who are clearly unpleasant even disgraceful people with nasty friends and family. They are clearly incapable of raising a vegetable garden let alone a child. The thesis of this film seems implausible, it also seems hastily made (the soundboom keeps on dropping down at the top of the shot). The makers of this film are clearly dirty-minded, smutty individualists remarkably naïve about relationships and sex, and would clearly be better served by going out into the world to find outsomething about D.H.Lawrence or Oscar Wilde or even just about loving relationships, than creating this degrading rubbish and perpetrating it on our screens. My advice to any decent punter is: stay away from this turkey.
Paul Murphy, Ealing Empire, London
‘Knocked Up’ appears to be a gentle, charming comedy about parenthood but is infested with all kinds of horribleness, double standards, hypocrisy that belies its apparent surface. Ben Stone ‘knocks up’ Alison during a one night stand after a night’s clubbing. Essentially the film piles up allusions, euphemisms in order to distract away from its essential derivativeness but also the hypocritical attitudes, regarding sex, marriage, babies, that the film panders to. At one point Ben is watching Steve Martin in the film ‘Parenthood’ on one of those big monitor hotel television sets that resemble fish tanks more than television sets, referencing the last dire Hollywood attempt to discourse about (something that perhaps Hollywood needs to do more than anything) growing up. This was one of Martin’s direst efforts but even paplike that is at least two notches higher than ‘KnockedUp’. Ben and Alison have fornicated without really knowingeach other very well, if at all, and the result is that Alison becomes pregnant (‘knocked up’). Alison (played by Katherine Heigl), an unpleasant,controlling person and a careerist, who is being lined up to be a television presenter of some kind. In some of the more unreal and ludicrous scenes in the film, the television companies director discusses ideas about her shows. Ben (played by Seth Rogan) is a kinder, more rounded character, portrayed in the film as a kind of waster, explaining to Alison how sex doggy style has nothing to do with dogs but is really only another sex position. Alison is utterly shocked by the suggestion that Ben and she do it ‘doggystyle’, even though she was formerly unperturbed about having sex on a one-night stand with a total stranger (at the start of the film when she was ‘knocked up’).But even though Ben is a little bit more pleasant than Alison, it is still quite obvious that he is a stinker. As is this film. There is one word that sums up this turgid mass of nonsense: vomit. Another one is puke. Alison is overcome by horror and sadness at the prospect of bearing Ben’s sprog. Ben is too, but he feels dutiful and responsible. The one other option open to the couple, abortion, is never considered, although it seems the only way forward toa couple who are clearly unpleasant even disgraceful people with nasty friends and family. They are clearly incapable of raising a vegetable garden let alone a child. The thesis of this film seems implausible, it also seems hastily made (the soundboom keeps on dropping down at the top of the shot). The makers of this film are clearly dirty-minded, smutty individualists remarkably naïve about relationships and sex, and would clearly be better served by going out into the world to find outsomething about D.H.Lawrence or Oscar Wilde or even just about loving relationships, than creating this degrading rubbish and perpetrating it on our screens. My advice to any decent punter is: stay away from this turkey.
Paul Murphy, Ealing Empire, London
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