Knocked Up (2007)

By the mid-2000s, writer and director Judd Apatow had already established himself as a reliable hand in American comedy through his television work, but it was his 2007 feature Knocked Up that cemented his reputation as someone who could take a premise rooted in awkwardness and bad decisions and turn it into something that actually resonated with audiences. The film follows Ben Stone, a good-natured, work-shy slacker, and Alison Scott, a television journalist on the rise, after a drunken one-night stand leads to an unplanned pregnancy. What could easily have collapsed into sentimental schmaltz or mean-spirited farce instead sits somewhere in between, playing the situation mostly for laughs while keeping one foot planted in something recognisably human. Produced through Apatow Productions and released by Universal Pictures, it arrived at a moment when a particular brand of R-rated, ensemble-driven American comedy was very much in fashion, and Knocked Up became one of the defining examples of that wave.

At the centre of the film is Seth Rogen, who had appeared in supporting and ensemble roles before this but here carries the whole thing as Ben. Opposite him, Katherine Heigl plays Alison with a combination of exasperation and warmth that keeps the character from tipping into the merely uptight. The supporting cast is where the film really fills out, with Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann playing Alison's brother-in-law and sister respectively, a couple whose own strained marriage runs as a kind of parallel commentary throughout. Jason Segel is also among Ben's circle of housemates, and the ensemble feel is unmistakably deliberate. Apatow had a knack for surrounding his leads with people who could hold their own in a scene, and the result here is a film that rarely feels thin or under-populated, even at a runtime of 129 minutes. For context on what Rogen was doing in this period, it is worth noting that the following year he appeared in Pineapple Express, and he later turned up in the science fiction comedy Paul, both of which I have looked at elsewhere on the blog. If you want something from the same era that takes a very different tonal approach, my review of Call Me by Your Name covers a romance film with considerably less improvised banter about bodily functions.

Knocked Up was a significant commercial and critical success on release, and it prompted a fair amount of discussion at the time about how it handled gender and relationships, with some arguing the film is more sympathetic to its male characters than its female ones. That conversation has only grown louder in the years since. Whatever one makes of those questions, the film has a polish to it that was characteristic of Apatow's productions during this period: polished but unremarkable visually, leaning entirely on performance and dialogue rather than anything especially cinematic. It is a film that lives or dies by whether you find the company enjoyable, and whether the mixture of gross-out humour and genuine feeling clicks for you.

They give each other Pink Eye. Genuinely quite funny, and the first time I remember seeing Seth Rogen in a lead role. He’s brilliant in it, awkward, scruffy, somehow likeable, and the film balances crude humour with a bit of heart surprisingly well. The real strength is the ensemble cast though. Everyone brings their A-game and adds to the chaotic charm of it all. Not quite a classic, but definitely a solid comedy of its time.

I think that balance between the crude and the sincere is exactly what keeps Knocked Up worth revisiting even now, when some of its cultural assumptions sit a little less comfortably than they did in 2007. Rogen's particular brand of shambling likability carries a lot of weight, and without it the whole enterprise would feel far more one-note. The ensemble around him just adds layers that a leaner, more conventional romantic comedy would never bother with. It is not a film I would hold up as any kind of high watermark for the genre, but as a comedy that actually makes you laugh and then sneaks in something a bit warmer when you are not expecting it, it does the job. Sometimes that is enough.

Rating: ★★★  | Year: 2007  | Watched: 2025-04-15

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Trailer

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Related on Movies With Macca

More with Seth Rogen: Paul (2011) · Pineapple Express (2008)
More from the 2000s: Kirikou and the Wild Beasts (2005) · Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) · Daredevil (2003) · Apocalypto (2006)
More comedy: The Eagle (1925) · The General (1926) · Americana (2023) · The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad! (1988)
More romance: The Eagle (1925) · The Last Picture Show (1971) · The General (1926) · The Docks of New York (1928)