Review: LIFE AS WE KNOW IT

As 2010’s movie year marches toward the big final holiday season Hollywood releases another attempt to capture the hearts(and cash) of romantic comedy fans. Veteran TV Director Greg Burlanti’s LIFE AS WE KNOW IT is Katherine Heigl’s second release this year(the other being the Ashton Kutcher co-starrer THE KILLERS). Clearly she’s attempting to find a spot in the genre recently dominated by Sandra Bullock and Julia Roberts None since her movie break-thru role in KNOCKED UP can come close to these actresses’s rom-com classics. This film is no exception.

As the film opens, Holly and “Messer”(Josh Duhamel) meet cute at a botched blind date set up by their mutual friends Peter and Alison ( Hayes MacArthur and the radiantly beautiful Christina Hendricks. Yup, I’m a big Mad Men fan.) I mean what guy takes a booty call at the start of a date? Here they’re established as the up-tight, focused career woman and the arrested adolescent man. When their mutual friends get married, Holly and “Messer” are forced into many uncomfortable social situations. How original. Then, after Peter and Alison are married and have a beautiful baby girl, Sophie, tragedy strikes. An auto accident claims the couple and surprisingly the baby’s guardians are the fussing, fighting singles. Conveniently(very) the gorgeous suburban house is all paid for, so the two decide to movie in together to raise Sophie in the familiar surroundings. Will they clash? Will they eventually warm up to each other? Will there be lots of baby poop jokes? If you’ve never seen a film before, you might be sitting on the edge of your seat in suspense.  For the rest of us it’s one cliché’ after another.

So if you’ve seen the trailers and commercials you pretty much know where this is going. This is filmmaking at its most lazy and predictable. Heigl seems to be in a rut as the chilly professional gal that just needs to lighten up a little in order to find her dream man. Duhamel get to show more of his talk-show-interview charm here than in another Transformers flick, but is ill served by the writers making him so obnoxious in many scenes. Josh Lucas is a terrific actor wasted in the thankless role of Holly’s would be suitor, the handsome doctor. This is a perfect example of the rom-com stereotype spoofed in the much funnier 2005 comedy THE BAXTER.  In order to not get too mired in the constant bickering scenes many comic actors familiar from network and cable TV are trotted out as funny co-workers, loopy neighbors(MadTV’s Will Sasso, Mike& Molly’s Melissa McCarthy, Eastbound and Down’s Andrew Daly, and from Best Week Ever Rob Huebel and Jessica St, Clair) and a wisecracking cabbie(COUPLES RETREAT’s Faizon Love). I will say that they make excellent use of the Atlanta locations. All in all there’s not one joke here that you don’t see roaring up Highway 75. Whenever a scene starts to fall flat the screen cuts to big close-up of the smiling,winking tyke. The state of the Hollywood romantic comedy is pretty poor shape these days. At least there’s something at the multiplex you can  take Mom or Grammy to that won’t offend them. Or surprise them.

My rating: 1.5  OUT OF 5 STARS