Life As We Know It Review

Knocked Up’s Katherine Heigl returns to the baby-boom comedy — but this time, it’s someone else’s sprogs. Holly’s best friends die in a car crash, leaving their child Sophie to her and their friend Eric (Josh Duhamel). Naturally, he is a self-serving ladies’ man whom she loathes, and so they must bicker and eventually bond over dirty nappies and nosy neighbours. So, the outline’s no great shakes, and the tone’s changeable: it goes from poignant drama to perky comedy without much respect for the fictional dead. Still, there are laughs: The Broken Hearts Club director Greg Berlanti brings a dash of irreverence to the table and the humour can go dark. It isn’t as insipid as the plot suggests, it’s just a shame the story goes nowhere — slowly.