- Listen to the entire program<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/p>\n
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<\/a>Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today. <\/strong> <\/p>\nJonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films. <\/em> <\/p>\n
Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net<\/a>. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim<\/a>, and follow him on Twitter at twitter.com\/ReThinkReviews<\/a>. ReThink Reviews’ theme song is by Restavrant<\/a>. <\/p>\n
Friends With Kids<\/strong><\/p>\n
In 1989, the film \u2018When Harry Met Sally\u2026\u2019 decided to take what was, at the time, a pretty modern look at gender relationships by asking whether a man and woman could ever be platonic friends. Since \u2018When Harry Met Sally\u2026\u2019 is a romantic comedy, the answer was basically, \u201cSure, until they eventually fall in love and end up living happily ever after.\u201d Still, this was a seminal film that sparked millions of conversations, and no film has come as close to taking a similar look at the heterosexual male\/female relationship. That is, until now. The new film \u2018Friends With Kids\u2019 takes the premise of \u2018When Harry Met Sally\u2026\u2019 to it\u2019s next logical step, accepting that men and women can be friends, but going further to ask whether male and female friends can raise a child together with no sex, marriage, or divorce. <\/p>\n
The couple in question are serial dater Jason (played by Adam Scott) and good girl Julie (played by the film\u2019s writer\/director Jennifer Westfeldt). Friends since college, Jason and Julie are now in their 30s and live in the same building, where they lead the kind of perfect New York lifestyles we\u2019ve grown accustomed to seeing in movies and TV shows, full of sharp outfits, beautiful apartments, hip restaurants, and attractive friends, consisting of comfy married couple Leslie and Alex (played by Maya Rudolph and Chris O\u2019Dowd) and passionate, sexy newlyweds Ben and Missy (played by Jon Hamm and Kristen Wiig). <\/p>\n
But this urban utopia is quickly shattered when Leslie and Alex reveal that they\u2019re pregnant, but promise that nothing will change and they\u2019ll stay the same hip, cool friends they always were. But flash forward four years, and Leslie and Alex are living a decidedly unhip life in Brooklyn, never going out, fighting, exhausted, and with the passion drained from their marriage. Ben and Missy have also gotten married and have a baby, but all of their sizzle has turned to resentment and spite. <\/p>\n
Jason and Julie each want to have children, but aren\u2019t attracted to each other and don\u2019t want to end up like their married friends. So they devise a shortcut \u2014 they\u2019ll become a happily divorced couple without the marriage or divorce, sharing child-rearing duties while continuing to enjoy their single lives. While their friends consider this a backhanded insult and a critique on their married lives, they can\u2019t argue with the results, though obstacles eventually arise, especially when Jason and Julie enter relationships with people who seem to be perfect for them.<\/p>\n
Since \u2018Friends With Kids\u2019 is, at its heart, a romantic comedy, you can probably guess how it ends. But I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this film, which has great, very natural performances and dialogue that actually feels like you\u2019re overhearing real conversations. The jokes come fast and funny, but it\u2019s the kind of humor that would come organically from witty adults spending time together. <\/p>\n
While republicans claim that marriage is some sort of perfect castle that must be defended from committed gay couples who seek to destroy it, it\u2019s pretty clear that heterosexuals have done a pretty good job of wrecking it on their own, with a national divorce rate somewhere close to 50%, give or take a few points. With most people having witnessed or lived through the pitfalls of marriage, more Americans are seeking to define their relationships for themselves by waiting longer to get married, living together longer, or remaining in committed relationships without ever tying the knot. Where the stigma used to be having a child out of wedlock or not getting married, the new stigma is against being unhappy and unfulfilled in a bad marriage and messing up your child because of it. <\/p>\n
The reason why Julie and Jason\u2019s plan to raise a child with their best friend is initially met with such disapproval and skepticism isn\u2019t because their plan seems so crazy, but because of the realities of most modern marriages, as well as those of their friends, that it initially seems almost too sane. <\/p>\n
\u2018Friends With Benefits\u2019 is rated R and opens today. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today. Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films. Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rethink-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28076\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}