Tatyana Aleshicheva about the smart rom-com “Children are not a hindrance to sex”

In 2001, screenwriter Jennifer Westfeldt co-produced the film Kissing Jessica Stein, based on her own play, co-written by Heather Jurgensen. The co-authors themselves portrayed in the film two intellectual women who, in the absence of a suitable match among men, begin to date each other: one places an advertisement in the newspaper with a quote from Rilke, the other immediately reads the code. There was no militant feminism in the film, and in the finale it generally took a completely conventional path and turned into a cute rom-com, but since it turned out to be really cute, the critics were pleased, and the film gained local fame in certain circles. A cameo role in “Jessica” was played by Westfeldt’s partner, who was actually married to her, the then unknown Jon Hamm. 10 years later, Hamm, who played the irresistible Don Draper in the TV series Mad Men, became famous, which he used quite wittily: he played a stupid, narcissistic male in one of the best comedies of 2011, “Bridesmaids,” exploiting the image of a super-macho man that had been ingrained in him.

In 2011, the production company Westfeldt and Hamm invested in the production of Westfeldt's new film, in which she acted as a writer, actress and director. Her new indie comedy, Kids Don't Let Sex, stars half of the brilliant cast of Bridesmaids, including Hamm himself. The film is like a loose remake of When Harry Met Sally, directed by Woody Allen in a skirt. This time, the conditional “Harry and Sally” still think that they are just friends and do not want to get married, but they bravely have a child and constantly reflect, pronouncing every nuance of their relationship. Even while having sex, they mumble and joke non-stop, giving the viewer another reason to appreciate the wit of the dialogue.

Julia (Jennifer Westfeldt) and Jason (Adam Scott) have been friends since college, are not sexually attracted to each other, but still spend a lot of time together and enthusiastically share stories about their adventures. But life goes on, and Julia and Jason's friends get married and have children. Leslie (Maya Rudolph) and Alex (Chris O'Dowd) already have three screaming, rambunctious offspring, but they are the perfect family, a true partnership based on kindred spirits with the same sense of humor and approach to life. But the marriage of Ben (Jon Hamm) and Missy (Kristen Wiig), which was supported mainly by frantic sex, with the advent of the child, on the contrary, begins to burst at the seams. Julia and Jason want to avoid “all this crap” at all costs and at the same time reserve the right to sleep with anyone, and decide to share responsibility for the child on a fair basis. No sooner said than done, and now the newborn is already squeaking in the stroller, and mom and dad take turns nursing him, allowing each other to run to the side. Family friends politely support the eccentric project, but deep down they consider Julia and Jason to be freaks, and their idea a challenge for “normal families.”

To top it all off, Jason gets an offensively beautiful girlfriend (Megan Fox) and Julia gets a Nordic superman, Kurt (Edward Burns). The climax occurs when the whole group of friends go skiing, rent a chalet, at dinner Ben and Missy get drunk, start arguing and, word for word, express to the advanced experimenters all their hard-won views on marriage and what it should be. The scandal can be extinguished, but a residue remains, in addition, Julia and Jason already feel that they have messed up somewhere.

Westfeldt's new film did not appear out of the blue; it exists in a dense context of many cinematic references. When applied to it, the epithet “film of the post-Apatow era” was already born: in the comedy “Knocked Up” (2007), Judd Apatow was already dealing with scammers who decided to have a child, and his film, in turn, was an homage to the not at all comedy film “U.” she will have a child" (1988) by the great John Hughes on approximately the same topic. The news is that Westfeldt’s heroes are not infantile, they do not need to force adulthood, they are already quite responsible people, just slightly lost among the concepts of “love” and “responsibility.” At the same time, Westfeldt's film absorbed the culture of talk television sitcoms like the epochal "Friends" with an emphasis on biting dialogue. Westfeldt's film, while pandering to the viewer, inevitably ends up with a melodramatic ending, but its undoubted advantage is the absence of the blissful idiocy of Hollywood rom-coms, where real people behave like walking schemes in an imaginary world.

In theaters from March 8

Friendship with marriage