Is "The Last Man on Earth" star's unmade script Oscar worthy? Find out on "UnMade," presented by "Star Trek: Discovery."
Related lists from IMDb users
Title: Friends with Kids (2011)
Want to share IMDb's rating on your own site? Use the HTML below.
| Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
| Adam Scott | ... | Jason Fryman | |
| Jennifer Westfeldt | ... | Julie Keller | |
| Maya Rudolph | ... | Leslie | |
| Chris O'Dowd | ... | Alex | |
| Kristen Wiig | ... | Missy | |
| Jon Hamm | ... | Ben | |
 |
Loulou Sloss | ... | Girl Acting Up in Restaurant |
| Katie Foster | ... | Girl in Office / Jule's Assistant | |
|
|
Robert Halpern | ... | Cole |
|
|
Daniel Halpern | ... | Cole |
| Rekha Luther | ... | Life Coach / Jason's Date | |
|
|
Peter K. Hirsch | ... | Doctor in Delivery Room |
| Lee Bryant | ... | Elaine Keller | |
| Kelly Bishop | ... | Marcy Fryman | |
| Cotter Smith | ... | Phil Fryman | |
Julie and Jason have been best friends for years with no romantic interest in each other. He sleeps with someone new every few days, and she's looking for Mr. Right. Now in their thirties, they notice that their friends seem to lose all their good qualities when they have children - child rearing and the spark of Eros don't seem to co-exist. So, they decide to have a child together, share in child rearing, but pursue their own romantic lives. Things go well until he meets Mary Jane and she meets Kurt. Both seem like perfect mates. What could go wrong? Written by <jhailey@hotmail.com>
Watch Hollywood hits and TV favorites for free with IMDb Freedive. Start streaming on IMDb and Fire TV devices today!
Explore popular action and adventure titles available to stream with Prime Video.
North American cinema is already quite saturated of films about the vicissitudes from "pretty people", but in spite of that, I was interested in watching Friends with Kids because its cast included various solid actors, and because it was Jennifer Westfeldt's debut as a director. One of her previous works as a screenwriter was for the film Kissing Jessica Stein (one of my favorite romantic comedies), which had a sarcastic/indie/emotive voice which distinguished it from the competence, and that's exactly what I expected from Friends with Kids; however, I wasn't left very satisfied by this film, because even though it's a bit distant from being the typical romantic comedy, it sacrifices acid humor for the sake of commercialism, and it ends up being as predictable as most of the films from the same genre.
Friends with Kids offers some moderately interesting comments about the setbacks from marriage and the erosion of romance in front of the relentless onslaught of domestic co-existence. However, the screenplay quickly degenerates into clichés, and it employs forced conflicts and artificial drama in search of the drama, which isn't very credible nor satisfactory. What is more, there's a point in which the film is near from falling into the soap-opera field. Nevertheless, Westfeldt, Adam Scott, Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Chris O'Dowd and Jon Hamm (Westfeldt's romantic partner in real life) bring sincere performances, and they are the main reason why this film is worthy of a slight recommendation.
Friends with Kids spills in every frame the pretension from New Yorker "yuppie" cinema, with characters too plunged into their own melodrama in order to realize that many of their problems are absurd, and could have an easy solution if they were less selfish and more mature. Anyway, as I previously said, I can slightly recommend Friends with Kids mainly because of the competent performances.