Life as We Know It
Move over, cupid; it's time for the angel of death to play matchmaker in Life As We Know It, a rom-com from director Greg Berlanti and first-time screenwriters Ian Deitchman and Kristin Rusk Robinson which proves the old adage that there's no better catalyst for love — and comic hijinks — than the sudden, tragic demise of loved ones.
Holly Berenson (Katherine Heigl) and Eric Messer (Josh Duhamel) could not be more different. He's an aspiring television sports director and an unrepentant cad whose casual, seat-of-your pants approach to life is best symbolized in the ratty baseball hat that perpetually adorns his dome (always worn backwards — classic movie shorthand for "slob"). She's a successful caterer with a five-year plan and a strict intolerance for disorder of any kind. He has a penis; she a vagina. We're talking Israel and Palestine here, folks.
The mutual disdain between Holly and Messer is palpable and intense, but the two are always able to put their differences aside when in the presence of their goddaughter, Sophie, the unbearably adorable spawn of his best friend, Peter (Hayes MacArthur), and her best friend, Alison (Christina Hendricks). When the youthful parents perish suddenly in a car accident (the tragedy of which is compounded by the loss of Mad Men star Hendricks, on-screen for all of a few minutes and annoyingly clothed throughout that span), there's little time to mourn before hilarity comes calling in the form of an estate lawyer, who reveals that Peter and Alison, mischievous rascals that they were, mandated in their will that Sophie be raised by Holly and Messer in the event that the child is abruptly orphaned.
One's heart really goes out to Duhamel's character here: Not only does he lose his best friend, but he's saddled with both a helpless one-year-old and Katherine Heigl. What sort of mass-murdering past life is this guy being forced to atone for? Put this material in the hands of Clint Eastwood and it's got Oscar potential. And yet, not only does Messer not strangle Holly in her sleep, he falls in love with her! And she for him! Their romantic bond flowers unexpectedly as they devote themselves to the task of caring for Sophie, within whose many noxious emissions, it seems, is housed some sort of powerful aphrodisiac that renders even the most unappealing people somehow irresistible.
The effect spreads to the audience, as Duhamel and Heigl conspire to win our affections, establishing a keen romantic chemistry that almost makes Life As We Know It's far-fetched (and occasionally bizarrely macabre) plot palpable. Duhamel hits that sweet spot between eye candy and everydude as well as any actor working today, and his easy charm rubs off on Heigl, whose trademark busybody antics aren't nearly as cloying as in the previous seven chapters of her "Men Are Pigs" rom-com decalogy. In fact, she's downright likable in this film. Maybe there's some truth to all that nonsense about babies being little miracles after all.
Hollywood.com rated this film 3 stars.