What to Expect When You're Expecting

A perennial bestseller since its release in 1984, the pre-natal manual What to Expect When You’re Expecting reassuringly catalogues the myriad physical and emotional changes common to pregnancy; owning the book has become a rite of pregnancy passage itself for expectant parents. The filmmakers of the new ensemble comedy of the same name do all they can to mine the universal experiences of impending parenthood, with needlessly vulgar, but often funny and occasionally heart-warming results.

What to Expect When You’re Expecting, the movie, chronicles the baby-related adventures of five loosely interconnected couples. Celebrity trainer Jules (an astonishingly fit Cameron Diaz) and professional dancer Evan (Glee’s Matthew Morrison) meet on a Dancing with the Stars-type show. When they discover they are going to have a baby, their initial apprehension turns first to happiness and then to conflict when the fiercely independent Jules wants to make all the key decisions (like whether or not to circumcise) on her own.

Cameron Diaz as Jules

While Jules and Evan live out their baby-drama in LA, four other couples deal with impending parenthood in Atlanta. Wendy (30 Rock‘s Elizabeth Banks) is a baby-expert and author who has never actually had a baby; when she and husband Gary (Bridesmaids‘ Ben Falcone) finally do conceive, the ‘glow” Wendy has anticipated for so long is lost in an unceasing tide of hormones and nausea. At the same time, Gary’s relentlessly competitive race-car driver father Ramsey (Dennis Quaid, having good-natured fun with a rather one-dimensional role) is once again one-upping his son by expecting twins with his much younger wife Skyler (swimsuit model Brooklyn Decker), who intensifies Wendy’s misery at every turn by exhibiting none of the usual unpleasant pregnancy symptoms.

Meanwhile, Rosie (Up in the Air‘s Anna Kendrick) and Marco (Gossip Girls‘ Chace Crawford) are chefs in rival food trucks whose new relationship is challenged by an unplanned pregnancy that does not unfold as expected. And Holly (an understated but luminous Jennifer Lopez) is a photographer whose happy marriage to Alex (Brazilian star Rodrigo Santoro) has endured the sorrow of infertility; Holly is ready to adopt but Alex is less certain.

Brooklyn Decker as Skyler, Dennis Quad as Ramsey

Holly sends Alex to a Saturday afternoon “dudes group” for some reassurance; the pack of stroller-pushing, frank-talking dads whose motto is “no judging” is lead by easy-going father-of-four Vic (Chris Rock). The dudes are more caricatures than characters, and they lend the film its most slapstick-y humor.

Director Kirk Jones (Waking Ned, Nanny McPhee) and screenplay writers Shauna Cross and Heather Hach do a nice job distinguishing the various storylines in What to Expect; the main characters are well established early on and the plot confusion that can sometimes plague ensemble pieces is avoided. It’s fun to watch the degrees of separation decrease between the lives of the various couples as the storylines overlap and intersect in inventive ways.

However, the sheer number of storylines makes What to Expect … broader than it is deep. Even at a fairly lengthy 110 minutes, the movie leaves too many questions unanswered. How does the fitness-obsessed Jules adjust so quickly to an unplanned pregnancy? How did the childless Wendy come to own a store called “The Breast Choice” and gain renown as a lactation expert? Why, after three rounds of infertility treatments, is Alex caught so unawares by impending fatherhood? And how is Vic’s toddler Jordan surviving so many mishaps at the park?

Anna Kendrick as Rosie, Chace Crawford as Marco

What to Expect … could have been stronger if the writers had given even a fraction of the time they devote to pregnancy-related flatulence to more nuanced plot development. Of course, when pregnancy is the topic, there is no shortage of intimate and potentially crass subject matter available, and the screenplay mines plenty of cheap laughs from sexual-innuendo, circumcision debates, and the promotion of breast-feeding. Some of this material is legitimately funny—pregnancy is a full-body experience and warrants earthy discussion—but some of it is so over the top and lazy it actually works against the more genuine character-based humor.

Chris Rock as Vic, Rodrigo Santoro as Alex

The screenplay suffers not only from crassness but also from mood swings rivaling those of a third trimester expectant mama. These stories range from farce to domestic comedy-drama to tragedy, and back again, sometimes getting more than a little muddled in the process. But the uniformly strong cast, coupled with a theme packed with emotional resonance for any viewer who’s ever contemplated having a kid, makes What to Expect … highly watchable and, in the final analysis, fun.

For all its potty humor, the movie actually offers some grown-up virtues. New life—planned for or not—is respected and ultimately welcomed. Adoption is portrayed with a graceful recognition of its complexity and richness as a path to parenthood. The men in this movie, refreshingly, are uniformly committed to the gifts and responsibilities of fatherhood. In these respects, What to Expect When You’re Expecting is subversively—unexpectedly—good.

Talk About It

Discussion starters

Jules and Evan fight over decisions affecting their baby. In nuclear families, should one parent have a greater say than another? How should parents come to important decisions for their young children?
Alex worries he won’t bond with his new son. Is this a worry specific to adoptive parents or is it experienced by birth parents as well? How might one respond to this concern if expressed by a friend?
The “dude” group provided a place for dads to vent and feel accepted. Could such a group be facilitated in the context of a church? Why or why not?
How has your church responded to unplanned pregnancies in the past? What do you think is an appropriate Christian response?

The Family Corner

For parents to consider

What to Expect When You’re Expecting is rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content, thematic elements and language. Although sexual activity is more implicit than explicit, it is thematically central and occurs in several scenarios outside of marriage. There is no full nudity but several scenes with women in underwear or bikinis. Conversations regarding circumcision, breast-feeding, conception and libido are crass and there is a moderate amount of profanity. Although this movie does affirm some important values (embracing life, adoption, accepting the responsibilities of parenthood), its vulgarity makes it inappropriate for children and highly questionable for most teens.