7/10
He's Having An Early Mid-Life Crisis
14 July 2007
Warning: Spoilers
...Would be a more fitting title for this movie. And I really liked the movie. It just wasn't about a baby, and it wasn't about his wife. She's a secondary character, if that. It's all about Kevin Bacon's character who is a ad-man who wants to be a professional writer, but his wife, and the beautiful home in the suburbs and all its dreary perfection, is bringing him down. As are his in-laws, his player best buddy (Alec Baldwin in his thin days), and a dream-girl who seemingly wants to seduce him. This film is really about the struggle and the temptation of a guy who has everything, but doesn't know if he wants it. There are some incredible, creative scenes. One showing how his office literally closing in on him; another showing a picture of his father-in-law smiling as he's looking at it; then he says something to the picture (as if speaking to it) and the picture has changed to where the father-in-law has a shocked expression. There's one homage to "Psycho" where the wife throws "the pill" down the drain; you get a shot of the water going down the drain which then slowly dissolves to her eye. And there's a musical sequence with suburbanites mowing their lawns whilst dancing and singing that is hilarious when taken in its context; but if you were to see this sequence out of context, you'd think it's gonna be a horrible film. Anyhow, this movie is all about the husband. They show the wife having the baby at the very end, and things get complicated and that's when he realizes how much he loves her... brooding in the waiting room like the character from Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms". But you really don't feel that he ever really loved her in the first place. That's the only fault I can give this film. The rest of it is creative and totally entertaining.
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