If you’re planning to get some solid, good entertainment out of this rom-com, you’d better have a back-up plan. From the moment girl and boy find themselves hopping into the same cab (nod along if this sounds familiar), you know it’s going to be a long ride.
As with most rom-coms, this one follows a trajectory more certain than the earth’s orbit, despite an interesting premise. Jennifer Lopez makes a comeback as Zoe, a hippie, go-getter who’s in a race against her biological clock. After one too many bad dates, she thinks she’ll never meet the right man to have babies with, and goes for an artificial insemination. Murphy’s Law kicks in, and sooner than she can feel the first pangs of morning sickness, she meets Stan (Alex O’Loughlin) in said cab encounter, who is not only cute but impossibly understanding, patient and loving. So perfect is he, that his character comes off as too much of a stretch (especially when the pregnancy kicks in and the couple has to bundle their first dates with check-ups!)
Unbelievable characters are just one of the many flaws in this occasionally funny movie, which portrays pregnant women as completely berserk creatures entitled to gross, unwomanly behavior. There’s also the obligatory best friend and confidant, and the random stranger who dispenses nuggets of wisdom to the hero-in-distress. There are two redeeming qualities, however: one, Lopez’s cutesy, girly charms make her an entirely plausible love interest for the much younger Alex O’Loughlin; and two, the premise of the movie gives a thought-provoking glimpse into how bio-tech can change the fundamentals of the family unit.
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