“Friends with Kids” is a realistic and funny look at what happens in life when friends get to a certain age. For me, it all started happening about five years ago.
My friends, many of whom had been in long-term relationships since high school or early in their college years, all started to get engaged. Next came a string of weddings, with all the events that come along with it – bridal showers, bachelorette parties and eventually the ceremonies and receptions.
With most of my friends, who were all in their late 20s and early 30s when they tied the knot, the very quick next step was to bring a baby into the picture. Several of my friends were pregnant within months after their nuptials.
As the last one to get engaged in my circle of friends, I can certainly relate to Julie Keller’s (Jennifer Westfeldt) situation in “Friends with Kids.” The movie follows Julie and Jason (Adam Scott) over the course of several years. They spend many a free night with their married friends Leslie (Maya Rudolph), Alex (Chris O’Dowd), Missy (Kristen Wiig) and Ben (Jon Hamm).
Life seems to be perfect for the married pairs. Jason goes from one short-term fling to another and Julie just can’t seem to find anyone worthwhile. The last person Leslie set her up with turned out to be a criminal – white-collar – but she isn’t ready to compromise that way yet.
When the group gets together for a dinner at a fancy Manhattan restaurant one night, Jason and Julie complain about a nearby couple who brought their kids to the restaurant with them. That’s when Leslie and Alex announce that they are having a baby.
They promise that nothing will change and they will leave the kids home for nights out on the town. But as happened with many of my friends who now cancel lunches because the little one is sick or schedule weekend get-togethers around naptime, it doesn’t quite pan out the way they plan.
A few years later, their friends have moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn. Julie and Jason are the ones to travel to the outer boroughs for a dinner party at home. Despite the over-arching comedy in the movie, there are some scenes that are extremely tense.
The dinner party scene is one of them. Alex and Leslie now have two kids, and Missy and Ben have one. The parents are harried – both couples admitting that they forgot to buy a present for Jason’s birthday.
They bicker openly about almost everything – with Missy and Ben escalating it to an extreme moment that drives them from the dinner table. Julie and Ben end up eating leftover cake alone at a dinner before talking about how they don’t ever want to end up like their friends.
Julie, however, really wants to have a baby. She is just concerned about the timeline – she is 37 and feels like her clock is running out. She figures that by the time she meets “the one,” gets engaged and gets married, they will have limited time for just the two of them before they have to start trying to have a baby.
Jason suggests that perhaps the two of them should have a baby together – they can get the baby out of the way with someone for whom they have no romantic feelings and then they can focus on finding the one. Julie laughs Jason off at first, but somehow she comes around. When they tell their friends, the responses are hilarious and are probably true to heart to how good friends would respond.
While they are all supportive in person, Leslie takes an affront to their idea of having a kid without the messy entanglements of marriage. She gets that they don’t want to end up like she and Alex, even though the two of them have their happy moments. Ben and Missy both think the idea is atrocious, but they keep their negative thoughts to themselves.
Jason and Julie proceed with their plan – they will split custody 50-50 and will share the cost of raising their baby. They live in the same apartment building so it makes it especially easy to share the time. After their son Joe is born, their friends are waiting for an opportunity to gloat.
But Julie and Jason’s experiment seems to be working. Julie is relaxed and collected, serving up homemade appetizers in her immaculate Manhattan apartment to her friends while Jason carries the baby in a baby bjorn.
The arrangement isn’t perfect, however, when Jason and Julie both start dating the people they think might be “the one.” There are less humorous moments in the second half of the movie, as Jason and Julie navigate the world of co-parenting and dating.
Westfeldt did do a great job with some witty dialogue for the actors. Though some of the conversations can be a little crass, most of what the friends talk about comes across as realistic banter between friends.
Westfeldt really toned down the performances of Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig, last seen together in “Bridesmaids.” Rudolph’s character still had funny moments, but Wiig’s character turns weepy shortly into the film. It felt like a wasted casting on Wiig.
The other casting flaw is Adam Scott as a ladies’ man. Scott, who plays a nerdy accountant on “Parks and Recreation,” is hard to imagine as a player who would land Megan Fox (who plays his love interest.) But Scott’s delivery on jokes is spot on and his chemistry with Westfeldt works great.
