Knocked Up

With his much-beloved, cancelled TV show “Freaks and Geeks,” 2005’s surprise box office smash The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and now this near-masterpiece of mainstream comedy, writer/producer/director Judd Apatow has created a small phenomenon in American filmmaking. Working within a system that only cares about opening weekend returns and profitable formulas, Apatow seduces the target demographic of teens and young adults with a title and formula that promises nothing more than mindless raunchy hi-jinks. Yet his actual films are less about gags than about human characters, and Apatow succeeds in uncovering the humanity within the most seemingly two-dimensional comic caricature.

Every person in an Apatow film is flawed, yet no apologies are made for them, and they are instead observed with a wealth of compassion and insight. The fact that his films are also funny as hell is a credit to the exceptional cast he assembles, whose seemingly spontaneous interactions generate the film’s most uproarious moments. There’s also a genuine heart lying beneath each of Apatow’s films, suggesting less of a built-in moral code than simple human decency. That is what makes his comedies so refreshing, and in the end, uplifting.

Take Knocked Up, for example. Its posters supply a massive close-up of its star, burly 25-year-old Seth Rogan, beneath the tagline, “What if this guy got you pregnant?” This is tailor-made to make the film’s target audience laugh and recoil at once. When they go to see the film, they may undoubtedly find themselves surprised at just how much they end up caring about the people onscreen.

Rogan (who stole scenes in much of Apatow’s previous work) is endearingly raw as Ben, a geeky yet good-hearted slacker who journeys with his clueless buddies to a bar one night, and becomes smitten with beautiful career-girl Alison (the delightful Katherine Heigel from “Grey’s Anatomy”). They hit it off famously, and in drunken ecstasy, decide to have sex. The next morning, they wake up regretting their impulsiveness, and quickly part ways.

But eight weeks later, Alison finds herself pregnant, and Ben finds himself faced with newfound responsibility. They decide to commit to each other, and give their relationship a real shot, as Alison prepares to go through with the pregnancy. They’re supported by Alison’s friend Debbie (played wonderfully by Apatow’s wife Leslie Mann), whose marriage to husband Pete (the ever-hilarious Paul Rudd) has hit a rocky patch. Some of the film’s best moments center on their family life with two girls (played by Apatow and Mann’s own girls, the adorable Iris and Maude Apatow).

The film is rather brilliant in how it dissects the lives of its characters with such scathing humor and blisteringly accurate details, while finding their inherent humanity to be quite moving. The sole flaw in Apatow’s technique is also his greatest strength—the fact that most of his comic set-pieces seem to be built largely around improvisation in order to create the hilarity of human spontaneity. While this leads to the film’s best moments, it also allows some scenes to drag on longer than they need to be, and through slightly tighter editing, this film could’ve easily been twenty minutes shorter than it is now. That being said, the film is so funny, so real, and so extraordinary that I can’t think of any other film now in theaters I’d rather see run on too long.

Knocked Up is a gift from cinematic heaven, and here’s hoping it will lead to a revolution in mainstream American filmmaking—where audiences and studio execs alike will be tricked into endorsing quality entertainment, and then end up loving it. Who knows? Maybe Apatow has started to find a cure for our national arrested development.

Rating: ****1/2 (out of *****)