In her forties with a disaster of a love life, Lainey puts on a fake baby bump to live out her unrealized dreams, only to accidentally build a much better life within her new pregnant persona.
These parts of Kinda Pregnant stuck out to me the most: Kinda Pregnant is Relaxingly Unserious, Amy Schumer is Kinda Funny, and Incompetent Fathers are Kinda Overplayed.
Kinda Pregnant is Relaxingly Unserious
When I sat down and turned this movie on, my goal was to shut my mind off and this movie did just that.
I didn’t need to search for a deeper meaning.
I didn’t need to acknowledge all the unrealistic scenarios.
I didn’t need to prep for an intellectual deep dive.
Kinda Pregnant just took my tired brain into its warm embrace and said, “Shhhh, relax. You don’t need to work here.”
So, with just enough intrigue to keep me from completely passing out, I watched Kinda Pregnant, grateful for the brain break.
Grateful for the stupid jokes, and the easy-to-follow tropes. I didn’t have to wrap my head around anything new.
It highlights the theory that all art has its space.
All art has an emotional environment where it thrives. An audience that it speaks to. And Kinda Pregnant is built for a time when you can just shut off all anxieties and not stress about anything.
my Schumer is Kinda Funny
I told myself I wouldn’t overuse the word “kinda” in my review but here I go doing it anyway. Eh – it doesn’t matter. We’re just having fun here.
Amy Schumer has gotten such a bad reputation in Hollywood for many reasons.
She can often rub people the wrong way, which is just collateral with a comedy career. Your whole job is to say things that hold people’s attention. Chances are you’re going to ruffle some feathers.
Although I don’t think I was ever rolling on the floor laughing during any part of this movie, I was amused by Schumer’s ability to just fully embrace the absurdity of the film’s crazy scenarios and commit to the bits.
Her comedic executions of even the most ridiculous circumstances were skillfully delivered to the point where moments that easily could’ve been the definition of cringe were instead casually humorous.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have Fallon, played by Urzila Carlson, the raunchy guidance counselor of the school where Lainey works as a teacher.
Now, I’ve come across Urzila as a stand-up comedian on YouTube and I personally don’t vibe with her style of comedy.
This is totally personal preference, but I don’t like comedians who are aggressively in-your-face as they try to be funny and that’s what Carlson was giving for me.
And I hate to say it but I couldn’t help but wonder if they were trying to produce a knockoff version of Rebel Wilson with Carlson’s character. Heavy-set, inappropriate, Australian comedic relief… it’s just too similar. Like something we’ve already seen before. A tired role that is being redone.
Incompetent Fathers are Kinda Overplayed
Another trope that this film played out was the incompetency of men when it comes to fatherhood and the poor quality of these men as husbands.
This is a trope that has been played out so much in so many arenas of entertainment, primarily sitcoms.
While Lainey was searching for a man to love, we saw men only in positions of stupidity and insensitivity, like they were a bit of an inconvenience to have around.
The only man with a semblance of sense was the main love interest of the film, and even he had a few screws loose.
Like, he was casually dating a pregnant woman and asked none of the important questions…
When it comes to the idiot man-baby trope, my question is, why?
Is this an exaggeration of real life from a woman’s point of view? Is it just easier and more comedic to have one-dimensional, air-headed characters?
Stupidity is often used as a tool in comedy…
