Benjamin’s Stash
You’d think Seth Rogen would be incentive enough for contraceptives.
Cast of Characters:
Ben Stone – Seth Rogen
Alison Scott – Katherine Heigl
Pete – Paul Rudd
Debbie – Leslie Mann
Jay – Jay Baruchel
Jonah – Jonah Hill
Jason – Jason Segel
Martin – Martin Starr
Director – Judd Apatow
Writer – Judd Apatow
Producer – Judd Apatow, Shauna Robertson & Clayton Townsend
Distributor – Universal Pictures
Running Time – 129 minutes
Rated R for sexual content, drug use and language.
Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl) is a career-driven woman who’s just been given a new on-air position at E!, and is currently living in the pool house at the home of her sister Debbie (Leslie Mann) and brother-in-law Pete (Paul Rudd). Ben Stone (Seth Rogen) is a laid-back stoner living off the funds he received in compensation from a bus accident and working on a Mr. Skin knockoff website with his roommates.
What a match made in heaven.
While out celebrating her promotion with her sister, Alison meets Ben at the local nightclub, and they somehow hit it off. After a night of heavy drinking, ’cause how else is a schlub like Ben gonna get some from a go-getter like Alison, they both go home to her pool house for a one-night stand. Due to a combination of inebriated states and a huge misunderstanding of the phrase “Just do it already!” in reference to getting the condom on quick, Ben winds up going sans rubber and Alison winds up just a touch pregnant.
…
Wah-waaaahhhh!
They sell coat hangers in the housewares department, Ben.
Writer/director Judd Apatow’s sophomore effort, Knocked Up, follows the same formula as his filmmaking debut, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, an understandable choice when that formula worked as great as it did there. Not that going back to what worked the first time guarantees success a second time, but Apatow has an assured touch as a filmmaker that allows Knocked Up to repeat the formula successfully while still standing as a winner in its own right.
With a run time of a little over two hours, Apatow is juggling quite a lot between the various relationships and balancing both the stoner and rom-com elements. Thankfully, he handles it all smoothly and with nary a misstep, save one lagging Vegas getaway segment that could’ve been cut out or at least trimmed up with little to no effect on the film. Knocked Up is crude but never unnecessarily harsh; sentimental but never mawkish; and contains every cameo (including a hilariously self-deprecating appearance by Ryan Seacrest) and pop-culture reference in the book without feeling like a desperate attempt to be relevant.
The beauty of Apatow’s work lies in his ability to really push the bounds of crude comedy without the need to insult his audience’s intelligence. As is the same case with pretty much all of his films, this isn’t just gratuitous stoner crudeness. Combining both sharply-penned dialogue and semi-improvisational banter, Apatow and his cast deliver plenty of edgy, profane jokes with great delight, whether it’s Ben Stone’s gang of friends, a child’s innocent but slightly disturbing description of where she thinks babies come from or finding out another way of how to get pink eye. But accompanying the filth is this perfect balance of maturity and depth within the story and characters that turn the film from what could’ve been just a mindless stoner flick into something much more heartfelt than what you’d normally expect in an R-rated comedy.
A big signature trait of Apatow’s projects are the central characters, and how at first glance they appear as jokey caricatures, but over the course of the film, actually reveal themselves to be fleshed-out characters that are both believable and relatable. Whether it’s Seth Rogen’s all too laid-back stoner, Steve Carrell’s socially awkward virgin, Adam Sandler’s has-been comedian, Amy Schumer’s hard-drinking commitment-phobe or Pete Davidson’s unemployed high school dropout, these are characters that could’ve easily been turned into mean-spirited punchlines, but the cheap and easy route is never taken by simply condescending to them. Though jokes are naturally made at their expense, and for certain, they have flaws that are acknowledged, there’s still an overall endearing and sympathetic quality to them that make them likable.
It’s also a testament to Apatow’s skill that he can touch on serious hot-button issues like unplanned pregnancy and abortion without the heavy-handed preachiness of either side of the issue (similarly, Funny People tackled the subject of cancer without being off-putting or irritatingly melodramatic).
It goes without saying that Seth Rogen owes his career to Judd Apatow. Prior to this film, Rogen had a supporting role in The 40-Year-Old Virgin and roles in Apatow’s TV shows Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared. Knocked Up finally presented him with his first leading role, and in an odd way, it’s kinda inspired casting when paired up next to Katherine Heigl like oil-and-water. You might scoff and think it’s a stretch for cupid to match the tall, blonde and posh cheerleader type with some scruffy, ambition-allergic nowhere man who looks like the dude you buy cheap weed from in a Walgreen parking lot. Trust me, though, when I say, having worked before in retail, I’ve seen on more occasions than I can count couples that leave me convinced it wasn’t destiny that brought them together, but one night and way too much alcohol.
No, it was not Walmart, by the way.
Rogen’s grown as an actor over the years since this film, particularly in dramedies like Funny People and 50/50, and his fantastic dramatic turn as Steve Wozniak opposite Oscar-level talent like Michael Fassbender and Kate Winslet in Steve Jobs. His performance here, though, is a bit underrated in that people probably still think of it as him playing just another stoner. To be fair, Ben Stone is a stoner and a slacker, but Apatow makes no excuses for his immature behavior and gives his arc enough genuine growth that gradually reveals more nuance than his outward stoned loser exterior might show at first. This is best shown in scenes with Heigl where their characters are making an honest effort to find common ground, as well as a small, wonderful scene shared with the late, great Harold Ramis as his supportive father that’s both funny, sweet and highly poignant.
As Ben’s dad reminds him after he disappointingly refers to his sudden baby surprise as a disaster, “No, this is not a disaster. An earthquake is a disaster. Your grandmother having Alzheimer’s so bad she doesn’t even know who the fuck I am, that’s a disaster. This is a good thing. This is a blessing.”
Opposite Rogen is Katherine Heigl, who, following this film, stirred up a bit of controversy over reports of her extremely difficult on-set behavior and some ridiculous claims of sexism toward Apatow and this film (in fairness to her, she has backtracked from those comments in recent years). Putting all that aside, Heigl’s great here as Rogen’s romantic opposite (in literally every sense of the word), striking just the right balance between Alison’s ambitious, career-driven strength and the vulnerability that comes from the overwhelming responsibilities of her impending motherhood. Rogen and his pals may score a lot of the laughs, but Heigl proves here that she can be more than just the straight role for a chuckling Rogen to play off of, showing a natural knack for comedy that she really hadn’t yet shown before this film, and unfortunately, haven’t seen her match since.
The supporting cast includes the always dependable Paul Rudd and scene-stealer Leslie Mann as the stressed-out married couple who are pretty much everything Alison and Ben fear they’ll end up becoming in another ten years. Ben’s fellow slacker roommates consist of those from the School of Apatow who’d later go on from this film to do bigger things – Jason Segel (Forgetting Sarah Marshall; I Love You, Man; The End of the Tour; Shrinking), Jonah Hill (two Oscar nominations for Moneyball and The Wolf of Wall Street), Jay Baruchel (the How to Train Your Dragon franchise, This Is the End) and Martin Starr (Adventureland and the Tom Holland Spider-Man films).
On paper, the supporting characters might come off like caricatures. In lesser hands they probably would’ve, but Apatow gives them just enough of a grounded touch and cast members form such believable relationships that we buy each of them as a genuine character. Rudd has a charming everyman quality to him that never fails. Mann wisely doesn’t overdo Debbie’s insufferable attitude and actually manages to make it sympathetic. Rogen and Co. generate laughs easily through the authentic bro chemistry they share with each other, and, no surprise, a good deal of their scenes are improvised.
Thanks to Judd Apatow’s smart script and a talented comic cast, Knocked Up comes equipped with all the edgy, ribald humor you expect in an R-rated comedy, but amid all the F-bombs and sex jokes, also manages to say quite a bit about both the joys, fears and hardships of marriage and parenting. It doesn’t exactly break new ground with his formula, but just like he accomplished with The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Apatow proves once again that even the crudest of comedies can have a heart.
Stash Tier: Platinum Stash
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