What To Expect When You’re Expecting was off to a bad start when posters appeared with “It’s too late to pull out now” blazoned across it, making it a solid contender for worst tagline ever. It’s understandable that you’d want to erase that from your memory, but halfway through the film it will come back to you with a slightly different meaning.
Based on Heidi Murkoff’s bestseller of the same name, WTEWYE follows five couples through their first pregnancy, promising to expose it warts and all. Of course, no one really expects a film with J-Lo and Cameron Diaz to be a realistic representation of what pregnancy is like but even a smidgen of non-glossy Hollywood “reality” would be nice. Not having been through it myself I cannot say for certain, but I’ve seen enough episodes of One Born Every Minute to know that baby bumps are not that flawless, boobs don’t get that perfectly formed and the odd stretchmark is a godsend compared to the angry tiger stripes of reality. The complete abandonment of realism is the film’s biggest mistake, a bit of truth would make it funnier, more engaging and leave a bigger impact come closing credits.
Cramming in big names is one way to sell tickets but it makes for a shallow outcome. Too many characters and not enough screen time mean it’s hard to connect with anyone in particular, it would have fared better focusing on the strongest characters. Wendy (Elizabeth Banks) and Gary’s (Ben Falcone) journey is amusing and tender, and along with Gary’s competitive father Ramsey (Dennis Quaid), it’s pretty entertaining but unfortunately, most of the gags fall short. The Dude’s Group and a cameo by Megan Mullally are funny, but it’s too little too late. With couples like Marco (Chace Crawford) and Rosie (Anna Kendrick) diluting the humour it becomes disjointed and boring.
WTEWYE is riddled with stereotypes that may anger audiences more than entertain. This might be tolerable if it fulfilled its comedy potential, but it doesn’t. For a film about the gift of life it has very little heart.
Charlotte has awarded What to Expect When You're Expecting two Torches of Truth.
