Friends With Kids Review: A Fresh Take On Having Kids

Friends With Kids is a movie that will probably hit fairly close to home if you’re in your late 20’s or early 30’s and haven’t found “the one” yet. Society expects that you’ll graduate college, get a job, find your life long partner in crime – marry them, and then start having babies. But what happens when you can’t find “the one”? It can be stressful thought for females who know that they’re on a ticking clock if they want to have children…

In Friends With Kids, Jason Fryman (Adam Scott) and Julie Keller (Jennifer Westfeldt) find an interesting solution for this problem. They’ve known each other forever. They even love each other – only not in that way, so what if they take the pressure off? Why not go ahead and have a kid, and then worry about finding their soulmate?

The film does a great job at capturing all stages of a relationship. When we first meet Jason and Julie’s friends, we see that newly weds Missy (Kristen Wiig) and Ben (Jon Hamm) can’t stop having sex with each other – regardless of where they are. We also meet Leslie (Maya Rudolph) and Alex (Chris O’Dowd) who are about to have a baby, but they assure their friends that nothing will change… Fast-forward 4 years and Leslie and Alex have a completely different life where they spend most of the time yelling at one another. The magic from Ben and Missy’s relationship also seems to have fizzled out and turned bitter.

With the lack of love and romance in their friends’ lives after having children, what better encouragement could Julie and Jason have for wanting to jump in and have kids as well? It can’t be as hard as their friends are making it out to be, and neither of them have found their soulmates and both want kids. How hard could it be to be 100% committed 50% of the time?

So Julie and Jason do it – literally. They have a baby a year later, and it actually seems to enrich their lives to their friends’ disbelief. However, when Jason and Julie start dating other people after the baby arrives, things slowly become more tricky…

Jennifer Westfeldt doesn’t only star in the film, but also serves as the film’s writer and director. She does an excellent job at playing a relatable and likable character who you want to see happy – but she has also done a great job at creating a rather unique story to tell. Then there is Adam Scott… I’m a huge Adam Scott fan, and I have made a conscience effort to see all of the films and TV shows he’s appeared in since I fell in love with his work on Party Down. While this comedy is a little bit more of a drama than a lot of Scott’s previous work, I still enjoyed its hopeful yet not-to-mythical look at the possibility of two friends having a kid together and also possibly ending up together. While the concept of a relationship like this seems like a horrible idea (and probably is in most cases), it’s also an interesting alternative to explore that hasn’t really been touched on before – at least in films that I’ve seen.

Back to the cast though, it wasn’t just Adam Scott that sold me on this piece. Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Jon Hamm, and Chris O’Dowd (who I became a huge fan of after last year’s Bridesmaids) also star and completed the film on super low budget in only about two weeks. (I recently learned the in’s and out’s of making the film when Adam Scott stopped by an Atlanta screening to give fans the details on how making the film went down – check out our Adam Scott in Atlanta piece!)

All in all, Friends With Kids tells an interesting story with a fantastic cast. While it’s not as big budget and flashy as some of the other films that are hitting theaters right now – I certainly would recommend it (especially recommend it for a girls night out or with your best friend of the opposite sex if you’re wanting to subtly suggest anything…).

Grade: B+

Review By: Emma Loggins