Life as We Know It

TedFlicks Rating:

$8.00 ticket on a scale of $0 to $13.50.

MOTHER NATURE’S GAME CHANGER — THE HOLLYWOOD VERSION

“Life as We Know It,” the latest romantic comedy vehicle for the delightful and charming Katherine Heigl, leaves a little to be desired as a movie, but if one can ignore its flaws, it offers a lot of laughs. Pic, helmed by Greg Berlanti, casts Heigl as Holly, the 30-something proprietor of a popular Atlanta bakery, two years without a date (difficult to believe) and a tad uptight. Josh Duhamel as Messer is cast as her nemesis and polar opposite. The technical director of the Atlanta NBA team’s TV broadcasts, Messer is a slob, a pick-up artist, chick magnet, and everything that annoys Holly. The pair are set up on a blind date by their best friends, a soon-to-be-wed couple with all the annoying foibles thereof. Date goes south in the first reel. Then the married couple make Messer and Holly Godparents of their little Sophie. The bizarre meet-cute is typical of Heigl’s pics. So is the rest of the plot.

Boy meets girl. Boy repulses girl. Girl gives boy the shove. In a somewhat contrived plot twist (courtesy of writers Ian Deitchman & Kristin Rusk Robinson), little Sophie’s parents die in a car crash leaving their house and the care of Sophie to guess whom.

Boy and girl are shoved back together again in the name of duty. If this picture didn’t have such charming stars, it would be unbearable. Heigl and Duhamel lend pic a degree of empathy that few actors today can. Along the way, the pair become Sophie’s de facto parents, like it or not. Although it doesn’t aspire to such heights, “Life as We Know It” has an element of the 1952 Spencer Tracy – Katharine Hepburn vehicle, “Pat and Mike.” They give up their flats, move into little Sophie’s house, and, with the advice of social services, set about raising Sophie with all the physical humor one can expect from two un-attached singles who don’t really like each other raising a baby against their better judgment.

Remainder of pic is Murphy’s Law on steroids. Everything that can go wrong does. A few expected, albeit contrived, complications split the pair apart after they get together, the time of which auds can wager. Said get-together follows a number of amusingly shot rendezvous at the suburban house between Duhamel’s Messer and any number of hot chicks who bear a resemblance to Heigl when properly framed. This is one of pic’s cheap curve balls hurled at auds. Thoroughly annoying neighbors in the suburban area to which the pair have been condemned, drive this plot twist home with sledgehammers. On the way, one scene delights: Duhamel and Heigl in a supermarket — with Sophie: At Heigl’s request, Duhamel, without missing a beat, demonstrates how to pick up a woman in a supermarket — and Heigl is the target — until she realizes the skill he demonstrates. Make no mistake, “Life as We Know It” gets by on the charm of its stars — and charm they have in spades.

One can argue about Hollywood endings. “Life as We Know It” could have gone for the sort of ending of the 2009 Meryl Streep – Alec Baldwin vehicle, “It’s Complicated.” Or it could have gone for the ending of Wayne Wang‘s 1989 “Eat a Bowl of Tea,” which is about as Hollywood as one can get. To its credit, despite the aroma of focus groups, it goes for something a tad more plausible — albeit with a touch of the chase scene from 1969’s “The April Fools,” starring Jack Lemmon and Catherine Deneuve, updated for an early 21^st Century moment. Make no mistake. “Life as We Know It” is a formulaic pic, but it could be a lot worse. It’s a Hollywood feel-good movie. As such, tech credits are more than adequate. Auds will get what they expect from major studio feature. It probably will not win Best Picture, but one could waste 114 minutes in a far less pleasant atmosphere.

Pic is rated PG-13, probably for one under-the-breath profanity, a site gag involving baby-doo (which is mentioned using a four-letter word), and some brownies cooked up with weed. Give us a break. Take the kids. They’ll love it — especially the baby-doo sight gag and Heigl’s accidental destruction of Duhamel’s beloved motorcycle.

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