Entertainment : Front Row of the Balcony: 'Life' raises questions worth asking, in a clever way

Don’t let the poster fool you.

Seeing a man in his underwear, simultaneously chasing a baby and drinking a beer, may give you the impression that “Life As We Know It” is just another dumb child-rearing movie from Hollywood – where many of the biggest stars hire people to raise, or even give birth to, their babies.

It’s not.

In a society where now, there are more single people than married people between the ages of 25 and 35, “Life As We Know It” asks an important question that I have to admit I never asked myself before seeing the movie: “If the unthinkable happens and one of my friends or relatives ends up as guardian of my children, how would it affect their lives?”

The Story

Holly (Katherine Heigl) and Messer (Josh Duhamel) are having a difficult time adjusting to having a baby in their lives for the first time. Juggling job schedules, trying to figure out how to feed a baby, how to stop her from crying, and how to change a messy diaper without any embarrassing spread of poop are just a few of the challenges that any new parents face.

But Holly and Messer are not parents; they are not even a couple. They are the godparents of their best friends’ daughter, Sophie. After their friends die in an accident, Holly and Messer learn that they are now responsible to raise Sophie together. But Holly and Messer have never been together; a disastrous first date several years ago made it clear they have nothing in common. That first impression was confirmed at several occasions where they were together with their friends.

But to honor their deceased friends, Holly and Messer decide to move into their house and try their best to raise Sophie. This decision affects their careers and their personal lives and teaches them along the way that maybe, just maybe, their friends knew what they were doing when they made them godparents.

Why you should go

The movie does not mention this statistic – which was on the news this week – but for the first time in modern American history, there are more single people age 25-35 than married people. That means there are fewer people who are able and willing to care for a child if the unthinkable happens to one of their friends.

As young parents of significantly more than the average 1.9 children, my wife and I spent a lot of time discussing who to choose as guardians for our children. We considered the marital status, as well as the health – yes, both physical and mental – of all of our friends and relatives and decided that we really did not have any other option but to stay alive.

In the movie, after the death of their friends, Holly and Messer conduct a similar evaluation of the friends and relatives of Sophie’s parents and conclude that they have no other choice than to be her guardians. Holly juggles the new challenges with her bakery business while Messer sees his career as a television producer of basketball games struggle as he takes on the role of a parent. And both of them must juggle their personal relationships and their changing feelings for each other as they watch Sophie take her first steps and say her first words.

Why you should go

I think “Life as We Know It” is the first movie to seriously explore the challenges of finding godparents in a society where many couples’ single friends or relatives outnumber married ones. It raises these issues in a funny, clever and yet believable way, although the viewer knows that very few couples would choose two separate single people as joint godparents for the same child.

Actor Josh Lucas – you may remember him as Reese Witherspoon’s estranged husband Jake Perry in “Sweet Home Alabama” deserves lots of credit for his supporting role as Sam, who keeps coming back to the bakery to see Holly before she realizes that he is Sophie’s pediatrician. (Baseball fans: Lucas plays the ghost of 1970s NY Yankee catcher Thurman Munson in “Keepers of the Pinstripes,” due out next year. It sounds worthwhile.)

“Life As We Know It” is a romantic comedy, so you probably won’t have much trouble guessing how it ends. But the journey on which it takes the viewer is a thoughtful, sensitive, enjoyable ride on which – especially in this age – all young adults as well as every parent should go.

What you should know before you go

The movie is rated PG-13 for some of its language and sexuality. Sometimes I think that some movie writers in Hollywood think that a movie cannot be considered good unless it contains needless vulgarities. Or worse, they may think that most Americans think so. (I don’t.) This movie has a few of them. It could do without them.

“Life As We Know It” continues at the Palace through Thursday night. I am looking forward to seeing “Secretariat” and to finding out how closely it sticks to reality.