Friends with Kids is the latest raunchy-esque ensemble comedy to hit the big screen, but this time from an unlikely candidate, actress Jennifer Westfeldt, who wrote the film and makes her directorial debut with it as well.
The plot of Friends with Kids is simple. Two BFF’s, Jason (Adam Scott–Step Brothers) and Julie (Jennifer Westfeldt-24), are single people who live in Manhattan and aren’t remotely attracted to each other. One night they go out to a restaurant to see two married couples, i.e. their closest friends. When Leslie (Maya Rudolph) announces that she is going to have a kid with her husband Alex (Chris O’Dowd) that’s when things take a turn. Fast forward four years and both them and their other friends, Jon Hamm and Kristen Wiig, have babies and are living miserable lives. Upon seeing this, Julie and Jason decide that they want to have a kid but without the weight and troubles of marriage hanging over their head. “ They will be 100% committed half the time.” Once their child Joe is born the two manage to be the happiest parents in the world but it isn’t until the two of them start dating other people (Megan Fox and Ed Burns) when things begin to take a turn for the worse. I’m sure you can figure out exactly where this goes from here.
I’m going to save you a lot of time and say that Friends with Kids is exactly like Friends with Benefits (the Mila Kunis/Justin Timberlake film) except replace the sex with a baby and make the entire second half of the film a drama instead of a comedy. The first half of the film is really funny and the entire cast hits their comedic notes perfectly but right after we cross the halfway point the movie becomes about Julie’s unconfessed love for Jason which eventually 
turns it into a full-blown drama with one laugh coming within the final seconds of the feature. It actually really bummed me out since I was thoroughly enjoying the lighthearted nature of the film even if I knew there would be some very cliché sappy romantic ending.
The main take away from this film is that if you are single and all of your friends have babies you will always be miserable simply because they are. I am going to have to start praying that I am not the last in my group of peers to have kids so I don’t have to experience that hell.
Friends with kids is one of those comedies that that everyone hopes isn’t riddled by the same romantic clichés as other rom-coms but unfortunately does so and eventually does disappoint. What’s really annoying is that the clichés actually wouldn’t have been such a bad thing if Westfeldt was able to keep the laughs up, but because the film nosedives into parental and relationship hell it ends up sucking all the fun out of the room. As in so many similar cases, good performances from an entertaining cast just isn’t enough to elevate the film to the entertaining heights that it was destined for
Rating: An ok film if you’re looking to pass some time with a partner but it shouldn’t be at the top of your list (5/10)
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