There is a smattering of smart laughs in this 2008 comedy, but first-time director Michael McCullers really plods his own coincidence-driven script along with little sense of style or dramatic resonance. At times, it feels no better than a formulaic romantic comedy from the 1960's usually starring small-screen celebrities trying to break into the big time. Sure enough, this time, we are offered Tina Fey (currently of NBC's "30 Rock") and Amy Poehler, former "Saturday Night Live" Weekend Update co-anchors and definitely the cream of the current funny lady crop. The problem is that McCullers, a one-time SNL staff writer who also co-wrote the Austin Powers movies with Mike Myers, doesn't elevate the screenplay much beyond the limited dimensions of an extended comedy sketch. That puts most of the pressure on the two women to make this farce work as a distaff version of "The Odd Couple" with a pregnancy angle, and they often - you should pardon the expression - deliver.
Ideally cast with her smart, bespectacled looks, Fey plays 37-year-old Kate Holbrook, single and professionally successful as the VP of an upscale organic supermarket chain much like Whole Foods. She hears her biological clock ticking and is taking every step possible to have a baby. Her last straw is to pay an agency $100,000 to find a surrogate. Naturally, her polar opposite shows up as the ideal candidate - a junk-food-eating, Red Bull-swilling piece of white trash named Angie Ostrowski who comes with her money-drubbing boyfriend Carl. Kate is so desperate she is practically begging Angie to carry her egg, so Angie willingly accepts. Somehow, the women end up living together during the pregnancy and inevitably get on each other's nerves, more Angie on Kate's nerves since a few revelations threaten to upend the deal. Convenience appears to trump logic in tying up the plot's loose ends, of which there are many. However, McCullers' alternately sauntering and piercing Judd Apatow-like approach helps compensate for the bigger lapses.
A game cast also helps. Although fairly limited as an actress, Fey is sharp and likable as the often dour Kate and has the ability to bring the implausibility of her character's situation into more human focus. Even though she is entirely too old for her role, Poehler is a more natural comic presence as Angie, terrifically manic but surprisingly poignant during key moments. It's obvious their joint casting has more to do with their proved rapport than dramatic credibility. In a turn worthy of Jeff Foxworthy, Dax Shepard credibly makes Carl a mercenary sheep. Romany Malco (memorable as Andy's horned-up co-worker in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin") is given little to do as the streetwise doorman, the same fate of Maura Tierney bland as Kate's supportive sister. Greg Kinnear must be getting awfully tired playing the same type of romantic foil over and over again, but he does do it well even though his scenes also seem strangely truncated. Two veterans threaten to steal the picture in acts of petty larceny - a pony-tailed Steve Martin very funny as Kate's Zen-seeking boss whose idea of a reward is allowing her to stare at him for five minutes, and Sigourney Weaver as the overtly self-satisfied and all-too-fertile head of the agency. SNL regulars Will Forte and Fred Armisen show up in cameos. A fitfully funny farce.
