Review of What to Expect When You're Expecting (2012) by Kristen P — 17 Apr 2013

The book "What to Expect When You Are Expecting" is the basis for this film. This book is the closest thing in inspiration to the board game films that have been piping into theaters lately. I understand that this has a little more meat to its bones, being about the extremes of having your first child, but the film itself does not explore pregnancy.

Instead it deals with the different stages and eventual scourges of family life. The stories of several women and their partners intertwine to create a narrative about conception, family, adoption, and the merits of pregnancy, all the while failing to be entertaining.

Instead of being about what to actually expect when you're expecting, the film focuses on trying to interweave all these flawed narratives in order to have a long enough running time, which turns out to be far too long for a film of this type.

Time is allocated for some couples more than others, and that miscalculation makes it so we end up watching scenes of a very pregnant Elizabeth Banks gross us out time and again. Actually, I don't want time to develop any of these sub-plots.

There are several great performances, especially from Jennifer Lopez and Anna Kendrick, but they are playing the same characters they have already visited in "Pitch Perfect" and "The Back-up Plan.

" I did enjoy these performances most, probably because they weren't following the formula of baby makes three. One is about adoption and the other follows a miscarriage, and both still dealt with what you expect from pregnancy.

Cameron Diaz gives a forgettable and sinister performance, Matthew Morrison looks half asleep, Chris Rock is so out of place that he draws unwanted attention to himself, and Brooklyn Decker and Chace Crawford could have been out of the picture altogether and nothing would have been missing.

It's just a misguided, thoughtless cop-out, and though I know some people found some of these storylines truly heartwarming and sweet, I just found myself wondering why anyone could connect to cardboard cutouts instead of characters.