We have by now become accustomed to the lengths some movie characters will go to keep a good comedy lie going. But it’s still a special kind of feat when Amy Schumer, playing a baby-mad single woman who fakes a baby bump in "Kinda Pregnant,” is so desperate to maintain the fiction that she shoves a roast turkey up her dress.
You might be thinking: This is too ridiculous. The stuffing, alone. But if we bought "Some Like it Hot” and "Mrs. Doubtfire,” I see no reason to quibble with the set-up of "Kinda Pregnant,” a funny and often perceptive satire on motherhood, both real and pretend.
"Kinda Pregnant,” which debuted Wednesday on Netflix, is a kinda throwback comedy. Like "40-Year-Old Virgin” and "Wedding Crashers,” you can basically get the movie just from its title.
But like any good high-concept comedy, "Kinda Pregnant” is predominantly a far-fetched way for its star and co-writer, Schumer, to riff frankly on her chosen topic. Here, that’s the wide gamut of pregnancy experience - the body changes, the gender reveal parties, the personal jealousies - all while mixing in a healthy amount of pseudo-pregnant pratfalls.
It’s been a decade since Schumer was essentially launched as a movie star in the 2015 Judd Apatow-directed "Trainwreck.” But "Kinda Pregnant,” which Schumer wrote with Julie Paiva, almost as adeptly channels Schumer’s comic voice - the one that made the sketch series "Inside Amy Schumer” so great.
The movie’s opening flashes back to Lainey (Schumer) as a child playing with dolls and imagining herself a mother-to-be. So committed is she to the role that Lainey, in mock labor, screams at her friend and then politely apologies, "Sorry, but the expectant mother often lashes out at her support system.”
But as middle age approaches, Lainey, a high school teacher in Brooklyn, isn’t close to her dream. At the dinner where she suspects - no, is so certain that she tears open the dessert looking for a ring - that her longtime boyfriend (Damon Wayans Jr.) is going to pop the question, he instead makes an unexpected and unsettling proposal. Back at school, Lainey’s school lesson on Romeo and Juliet turns darkly cynical.
Things are even worse when Lainey’s married best friend (Jillian Bell) divulges that she’s pregnant. "Get rid of it!” blurts Lainey before apologizing. When the pair later go clothes shopping, Lainey absentmindedly tries on belly padding. The saleswoman is instantly nice to her, offering a burrito and a foot rub. "Who’s the father?” she asks. "Door dash,” responds Lainey before adding, "driver.”
Much of the fun in "Kinda Pregnant” is watching Lainey come up with increasingly ridiculous lies as she tries to pull off the pregnant act. (After accidentally picking Thanksgiving as her time of inception, Lainey digs a deeper hole by suggesting it happened at "a Black Friday Eve sale.”)
But the ruse becomes more difficult when she, during a pregnant workout class, meets a woman (Brianne Howey, refreshingly authentic) she genuinely likes and wants to be friends with. Even more complicated: Lainey starts falling for another guy she first meets at a coffee shop (Will Forte).
In a movie filled with funny people (others include Urzila Carlson as a guidance counselor and Alex Moffat as an idiotic father-to-be), Forte is an especially good presence in "Kinda Pregnant.” For a performer of such madcap absurdity, Forte fits in remarkably naturally in a more rom-com setting. He’s also got a wonderfully ridiculous occupation, even by rom-com standards, driving a Zamboni in Central Park.
You can probably guess how "Kinda Pregnant” goes from here. Director Tyler Spindel, nephew to Adam Sandler (a producer on the film), doesn't do anything to advance the movie comedy, a languishing proposition in recent years with few big-screen exceptions. But he crucially gives his performers plenty of space to be themselves, and Lainey's desperate desire to have a family comes across as both over-the-top and genuine. If "Knocked Up” captured the comedy of getting unexpectedly pregnant, "Kinda Pregnant” embodies the pain of wishing you were.
"Kinda Pregnant,” a Netflix release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for sexual content, language throughout and drug use. Running time: 97 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
