MasterChugs Theater: ‘Knocked Up’

For the time being, we’re going to take a look at the works of Apatow. The reason being? Pineapple Express has recently come out. It’s pretty good. You should go see it; however, we’ll get to it in good time. In the meantime, we’re going to examine the works of Judd Apatow in order to see how he has progressed as a director, writer and producer, though not necessarily in exact order. The first movie up? 2006’s Knocked Up.

Judd Apatow gets guys. For years men in movies have been cookie cutter presentations of ferocious might or sensitive driveling. In his movies, Apatow brings a different breed of man: one who falls between the stereotypes of the sensitive man and the ubermensch and paints a complete picture of just how complex men can be.

Nowhere is this more true than in Apatow’s Knocked Up. The 40-Year Old Virgin director tackles the worst nightmare for the single man–having a one night stand with a girl and then finding out that you’ve knocked her up. It’s a simple enough concept for a story, but thanks to Apatow’s delightfully complex characters and hilariously irreverent approach to the subject matter, Knocked Up runs the chance of being one of the most brilliant comedies of the decade. Click the button to see why.

Knocked Up is the very opposite of a storybook romance, and also the very model of a great comedy for our values-driven time: Slacker schlub Ben meets career-girl beauty Alison at a sloshy bar in L.A., where all the women are strong (and work in television) and all the men are exactly average (and dream of hitting it big by launching a dirty website), and the two get drunk together. Sex happens. Already, you can tell the fantasy aspects of the movie. Slacker schlub and drunken beauty experience misunderstanding about the use of condoms. Conception happens. Beauty, no longer drunk, chooses to go through with pregnancy and raise child, even if dad is a baggy man-boy who lives with stoned roommates. Schlub announces, ”I’m on board.”

How the auteur who had previously crafted the timeless American romantic-comedy classic The 40 Year-Old Virgin does this so successfully—mixes the raunchy with the sweet, the boob obsession with the sight of a baby’s head crowning in childbirth, the gross laughs with the ungooey heart—can, I think, be credited to four strengths, and let’s start with the shlubbiest: Seth Rogen as leading man. Was a guy who got lucky on a hook-up ever so believably a mix of decent Joe and hapless meatball? Rogen’s delivery of even the most provocative opinions is always tinged with distracted good spirits and self-deprecation. And his daft, lightly Jewish-identified sponginess sets off Heigl’s own achievement in playing a sharply sensible shiksa to great advantage.

Second, in contrast to the terrors (and, lest we forget, hilarities) of unplanned, out-of-wedlock parenthood, Knocked Up spends quality time with Alison’s married sister, Debbie, her vaguely restless husband, Pete, and their two young daughters. Debbie and Pete aren’t exactly the After to Alison and Ben’s Before, they’re more like experienced upperclassmen to freshman puppies overwhelmed with just getting to know one another clothed. In his depiction of imperfect, trial-and-error family life–funnier than Bergman’s Scenes From a Marriage, but just as keenly observed–Apatow honors everything he holds serious without losing a single ticket buyer out for a yuk-a-minute good time.

Third, even more than in The 40 Year-Old Virgin, the movie has an uncanny empathy not just for dorks who like pictures of naked boobs, but for the gender that comes equipped with those boobs, too. Ben’s got mouth-breathing housemates with a dumb penchant for horseplay and a dumber sense of hygiene and nutrition, and Apatow’s knack for keeping faith with their retarded social development is admirable. But then, as Elaine on Seinfeld might have put it, the filmmaker’s got access to, uh, the equipment 24 hours a day. That he is able to nestle himself so comfortably in, uh, chick skin is the revelation of this guy’s night/girl’s night/date night/get-a-babysitter night treat. And for that the Academy would like to thank Ms. Mann, and the little Misses Maude and Iris Apatow for what are surely their contributions to their hubby and daddy’s exquisitely raised, feminist consciousness when it comes to issues like pregnancy testing, body image, togetherness time, dining with another couple at a nice restaurant, and the whole Mars-versus-Venus thing.

Finally, Knocked Up may be the sharpest, most up-to-date commentary on current pop culture not involving Jon Stewart or Comedy Central. The riffs tumble free and loose, and the references are elegantly tossed off, even in the presence of a gynecologist pointing out fetal features on a sonogram. This comedy is such a blast of fresh air.

At the same time, this referential humor can be a double edged sword. The only thing keeping Knocked Up from becoming an instant classic is how dated the movie already is, even in its release. There are pop culture references every couple of minutes and, as culture changes, those references will become obsolete and some parts of the movie may lose meaning. Apatow did his best to keep those references as up to date as possible, including the characters going to see Spider-Man 3, which had only been in theaters for a month at the time of release, but the movie will inevitably be dated. For the currently 20-somethings like me, the references can be understood fairly easy; hand this movie to anyone 10 years older or younger than you and have them watch it, and maybe so not much.

The wonder of Knocked Up is that it never scolds or sneers. It is sharp but not mean, sweet but not soft, and for all its rowdy obscenity it rarely feels coarse or crude. What it does feel is honest: about love, about sex, and above all about the built-in discrepancies between what men and women expect from each other and what they are likely to get. Starting, as he did in The 40-Year Old Virgin from a default position of anti-romantic cynicism, Apatow finds an unlikely route back into romance, a road that passes through failure and humiliation on its meandering way toward comic bliss.

Knocked Up made me smile and wince; it made me laugh and almost cry. Above all it made me happy.

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