Friends with Kids: some thoughts

[diaphenia]

As the last person to see the movie (besides stillscape) I am sure we're all talked out on it, but let's take a few minutes and get back to it.



Overall, I enjoyed it. I mean, Adam Scott. How are you a person? How do you look so awesome in t-shirts? How could anyone believe your nose is a bad thing? Sigh I don't really think I'm that obsessed with him, really, but he was great. I liked Adam Scott; I liked his character less. Now, they tried their hardest to win me over, from the opening scene's close up o The God Delusio to his impassioned speech that tossed in a 'organized religion is crap.' But he comes across as pretty sleazy when it comes to women.

But probably still better than Julie, who's annoyingly passive for most of the movie. And this is awful, but I had a difficult time with Jennifer Westfeldt, or more specifically, her voice. I'm not sure I've ever seen her in anything else, but I'm disinclined to do so; her voice annoyed me. I don't know if that's her natural voice or a character choice, but I spent most of the movie wanting her to speak louder and deeper. I do covet her hair; it's luscious and beautiful, and I want to touch it. 

If I had one wish, I wanted to see more of the Bridesmaids remixed couples. I feel like those four had some interesting stories and I wanted the cameras to follow them home.

Here's the issue I had with the movie: I don't buy it. 

Caveat: I'm in my mid-20s, and I don't have kids. I don't want kids. I'm pretty happy with my potted palm tree.

The premise of the movie seems to be that having children makes you awful. I could buy that. I mean, to be fair, my friends haven't had kids yet, though there's one on the cusp, so who knows if children make adults awful? But I could believe it. Or at least I could believe Westfeldt, who has no children herself, could buy it, though if I were Adam Scott or Maya Rudolph I might have some things to say on that topic. But it' so weir to me that Jason and Julie could look at their friends turning awful and decide that the problem is being in a relationship with your co-parent.

And then the idea that five months into Joe's life they are making quiches? I call shenanigans. Even if they are parenting part-time, even if they have a nanny, I just don't buy that it's smooth sailing. Again, my friends haven't had a baby yet, but I don't know any parents who make quiches. 

I think they might have drugged that kid. Way too well-behaved, apparently the easiest child in the world. 

The other thing that really confused me was MJ. Let's be clear: I liked her more than Julie, if for no other reason than that she knew what she wanted- at least with her career- and went to get it. But here's the thing- if MJ was so anti-child, why was she dating an older man with a brand new baby? Did she want a lasting relationship with Jason, and if she did, what was her plans in regards to Joe over the long haul? When I say I don't want kids, I mean it. I don't want to parent someone else's child either, which is why I would never date someone with a young child (in a decade or two I can picture myself dating someone with grown children). Why did she keep dating him? Would she have agreed to be a stepparent to a child we never saw her interact with?

On some level I agreed with Jon Hamm's character when he argued that they should have thought this through. Had they not had their necessary rom-com ending, they would have had only a gentlemen's agreement regarding their child. She moves? He apparently can't do anything about it. It's a strange plan, and I don't... is this really something people do? Because they shouldn't.

I sound harsh, here, and I did like it and I'll probably go see it again in theaters, because I'm a childless person with disposable income and I want to see it again. But the premise is so insane I just don't understand how adults with children agreed to film it. 

Comments

[summerswings.livejournal.com]

I thought the premise was just 'having kids makes your relationship suck and you not want to have sex with your partner anymore' which for Jason would be the biggest travesty in the world, apparently. I think I really liked the premise in a movie, but in real life I think it would suck. Being a child of divorce sucks, but being a kid whose parents were never even married, and you have to switch houses like every two or three days, or even every day? Where is the stability? Don't kids need stability? I feel like it should've worked for them though, because technically, they were raising the child together, but they still got to have their own lives, free time and personal space, and whenever they had the child they basically got to raise it however they wanted without having to have any input from the other person (apart from the part where we saw Jason tell Kurt that he and Julie didn't allow sweets in the morning or something, so obviously they had made some kind of list of common agreements).

I'm sorry if this is a weird question and asks too much of your personal views, but, about not wanting to be a step-parent to young kids, what if you fell in love with someone who had kids? i know you can make the conscious decision to not date anyone with kids, but it's a crazy world and sometimes life happens and you fall in love with someone before even dating them, or maybe knowing them enough to know that they have kids. I can kind of see that MJ didn't want to be a parent, but they only had Joe half the time, and I think if you were completely in love with someone, you would rather have them and their kid in your life, than not have them at all. I do find it weird that we never saw Jason and MJ talk about that, though.

Now, thinking about it, if it didn't have such an incredible cast, I really don't think I'd bother seeing it at all, or that it would even be theatrically released. Although, it was really funny in parts. But I feel like I missed half the jokes because JW's voice was so soft. It was frustrating.

I also really didn't like the male/female dichotomy, although it was interesting that Julie's [annoyingly] perfect boyfriend kind of reverted that trope, and was made more appealing because he didn't want to go off with the men and MJ and ski, and instead preferred to stay at the cabin with the women. Have those of you who didn't like the gender stereotypes in this movie seen Away We Go? I really expected FWK to be more like Away We Go, with the unconventional parenting, and the awesome comedic leads, and do you prefer the gender commentary in that movie?

I was kind of annoyed that they went with the conventional cliched ending, because I wanted it to work, even though their stupid, weird idea actually working out would probably be the biggest cliche of all. Wah.

[whimsical-irony.livejournal.com]

I loved Away We Go! I hadn't thought of it in comparison with FWK, but they do touch on a lot of similar issues while tackling them from different perspectives. I loved the show, don't tell route Away We Go took with Burt and Verona trying to find the best way to raise a kid and discovering that really there is no perfect system and you just have to make it work for you. And Burt was super into talking about boobs, but somehow it came across as endearing instead of annoying.

[saucydiva.livejournal.com]

I've not seen Away We Go; incidentally, I was with my friend D recently and I saw a copy of that and mentioned I had always wanted to see it and he said it was awful. But I'd be curious your thoughts on it, if you'd care to share.

I don't know if MJ would have been ok with being a step-parent, but I think marrying someone with a child is committing to a lifetime of parenting, since you can't share a space with a child and refuse to engage with it. And maybe she's be ok with that, but maybe not.

As for my own love life... I mean, time will tell. But I tend to believe that love isn't enough; you must have compatible lives. Not to mention that someone who loves their child is unlikely to fall for someone who isn't enamored of the child as well.

[summerswings.livejournal.com]

That's definitely true about having to have compatible lives. It seems like such a stretch that someone that doesn't want to raise even their OWN kids, would raise someone else's. The only movie I can really think of that deals with the topic from MJ's perspective is... Stepmom? Hahahaha and that's probably not a great basis for comparison.

I definitely need to re-watch AWG, but I do think it's a wonderful movie. Incredibly heartwarming, in that at its core it's about different types of parents, who all have their own idea of what constitutes family, and how to be good parents to their children. It was for me, and the few people I've watched it with, far more laugh-out-loud than FWK was, which is funny considering FWK was a 'comedy' and I think Away We Go has a lot of lovely introspective moments as well. I think the subject matter kind of demands it though... even Knocked up, the mainstream 'original' of unconventional parenting movies had some deeper moments with the characters discussing what they really wanted.
It just goes a lot deeper into similar material, and in a much sweeter way, where you completely understand the motivations of both characters. I hadn't actually seen Maya in anything before I watched it, and had no idea who she was (being Australian and not really knowing about SNL apart from the one episode hosted by Zac Efron) and I pretty much watched it for John Krasinski, and was so taken by it and wonderfully surprised, and it's just a movie that leaves you with such a good feeling about love, and you really believe that these two people will be great parents. And that was definitely missing from FWK. FWK seemed more concerned with romance, and JW's belief that having kids makes relationships harder, or unsexy, and she seemed to prefer hot DINK* life. I think you'd like it though and this unfortunate Parks hiatus seems to demand you watch it immediately!

I'm actually really excited to watch it again now. It's definitely just my opinion though, but I'd love to hear what you think, and if it really is better than Friends With Kids (I really hope so).

*Not sure if DINK is a universal acronym, it stands for double income, no kids.

Sorrryyy, that was longer than I intended.

[saucydiva.livejournal.com]

I'll have to see if I can get my hands on that movie.