Quick thoughts about Friends with Kids
Excellent movie. I adored it.
- I really loved the idea at the end of "that's the romantic part"--being with someone day in and day out, knowing everything about that person, going through the hard things together, sharing values and a sense of humor. That is totally the romantic part! I've seen some professional reviewers come down on the movie for not following through on its unconventional family ideas, or for predictably hooking up the two leads in the end. But I really liked the point it made, that kids get a bad rep for crushing romance, but that having kids together can actually be a really romantic thing, if you're with the right person.
- It seemed like Jason had this idea that romance and attraction consisted of that intense, butterflies, hot-and-heavy feeling you get when a relationship is brand new. I think he was romantically (and physically) attracted to Julie for a while but took longer to recognize it because it wasn't new or surprising. It took being apart from her, and the conversation he had with Ben, to realize how in love he already was and to go for it.
- Jason's crass way of talking about women was offputting and weird, and I would have been happy with less of that. But maybe it was supposed to be a shorthand way to get across how immature his thinking about women and relationships was to start out with. If he hadn't been that immature, it would have been less plausible that it took so long for him and Julie to get together. It gave him room to grow up over the course of the movie.
- I liked how the other couples were drawn and how this theory that kids screw up marriages turned out not to be true. With Ben and Missy, it wasn't the fact that they had kids, it was the fact that they had a bad relationship. They had a strong attraction in the beginning, but the relationship couldn't survive stress. Alex and Leslie had some rough times--having kids is difficult, even with the right person--but you could tell that they loved each other. Jason and Julie seemed to be doing so well with the baby not because they weren't married, but because they had a good relationship to start out with. They were both really committed to pulling their weight, they were loving and gentle with each other, they had a good sense of humor about it. If they were married and not dating other people, it didn't seem like those things would have gone much differently.
- I liked how the movie held everyone accountable. When Ben said something jaw-droppingly horrifying, everyone was jaw-droppingly horrified. When he was awful, the movie didn't play it for laughs; his marriage ended, and his friendships suffered. To a lesser extent, it did the same for Jason, when Leslie and Julie talked about his attitude toward women. It was acknowledged, not endorsed.
- There were some smaller moments of Jason and Julie interacting as parents that I really adored, and that showed them not just being good parents, but being good partners. When Julie was fretting about the nanny, Jason took her seriously and wanted to do something about it. When she was upset about Joe crying, he defused the situation with some gentle humor. They're just little things, but they add up and they're so meaningful over time (and I imagine Ben and Missy's relationship deteriorating over hundreds of similarly small moments that went wrong instead of right). When you're stressed, does the person you're with make things better, or worse?
- I think I am in love with the dinner scene. For as much of an asshole as Ben was being, he raised some interesting valid questions about the arrangement that Jason and Julie had, and hearing Jason defend his choices and stick up for Julie was one of my favorite parts of the movie. But it didn't draw any pat conclusions either--it was more complicated and rough around the edges, and I really appreciated that about it.
- The last line was an interesting way to go, and I think I liked it. Jason had said all the sincere, romantic things at that point, but Julie really needed to hear and feel was that he wanted her, because he had rejected her before. The fact that he was attracted to her didn't seem like it was the most important part of his realization about how he felt about her. But it was something that was missing before and that she needed. And it was different--it gave an edge to what could have been a really sappy moment.