Labor Pains Review
by Jerry Saravia (Faust668 AT msn DOT com)October 20th, 2009
LABOR PAINS (2008)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
RATING: Two stars
Lindsay Lohan's career is on a definite slump. Rumor had it that she was considered for a role in a remake of "Rosemary's Baby"! That was quickly abolished in favor of a different kind of baby movie called "Labor Pains." Not the worst of its kind and hardly the best, and Lindsay Lohan almost saves it, but then she should not have to carry a by-the-numbers flick all by her lonesome.
Lohan is Thea, an inefficient secretary at a publishing company who almost loses her job until she claims she is pregnant! Of course, she isn't really pregnant but she lies to keep her job. I would assume her employer (Chris Parnell, Dr. Spaceman to the rest of you) would see through her fake smiles and fake sincerity (and fake bulging belly) but I guess I am wrong. Before long, Thea falls for her temporary boss, Nick (Luke Kirby), while Parnell is on leave for his sick puppy in Bethesda (that little plot point could've used more exposure). And wouldn't you know that Thea turns out to be as efficient as an associate editor with her own office as she was a lowly secretary, to the point that she helps to promote a pregnancy book that focuses on the downside of pregnancy. This is all thanks to the smitten Nick. Oh, and I did leave out Thea's sister who lives with Thea and cuts class to be with her boyfriend yet she is dismayed when she discovers Thea's lies, to the point of tearing the fake pregnancy pouch from Thea's belly! And why does Thea's sister look like a more mature Britney Spears? Just a thought.
"Labor Pains" starts off too slowly and only recovers somewhere around the three-quarter mark. Yet there is nothing here that can't be anticipated and it yields few surprises. Only Lohan manages to make you care for her character, which is fitting yet not enough. It is nice seeing Cheryl Hines as Thea's best friend but even she yields little surprise. The director Lara Shapiro doesn't engineer a fast- paced, rollicking ride of a comedy, like the 30's and 40's snappier paced "The Philadelphia Story" or any Hawksian comedy where the dialogue was delivered like a roaring engine that never let up. Even the 1980 counterparts such as "Baby Boom" and "Three Men and a Baby" had more rhythm. This movie simply takes too long to get anywhere, and drags along labored performances and a labored screenplay, no pun intended. This should have madcap written all over it.
As I mentioned before, I enjoy watching Lindsay Lohan and she has ample charm and good comic timing, when she is allowed to use it. But she needs better writers and directors or else she'll be stuck in romantic comedy mode forever. I see one of her future projects is "Machete" by Robert Rodriguez. Let's hope that breaks the spell of her most unfortunately titled picture, "Just My Luck."
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