While a Bridesmaids sequel remains an open question (albeit one easily answered by time and money), Jennifer Westfeldt’s Friends With Kids seems most primed to capitalize on its lingering goodwill. It reunites that film’s Kristen Wiig, Jon Hamm, Maya Rudolph, and Chris O’Dowd as two married couples who circle skeptically around a pair of platonic friends—played by Adam Scott and Westfeldt herself—as they embark upon having a baby together completely platonically, thus avoiding any potential complications that could give rise to, say, a charmingly neurotic romantic comedy. Unfortunately, that is exactly what happens!
Westfeldt has mined this sort of material before in movies such as Kissing Jessica Stein and Ira And Abby, and the presence of Ed Burns—a fellow veteran of indie film’s lineage of watered-down Woody Allen—as the guy who finally makes Scott realize that he might have feelings for Westfeldt certainly hints that she’s back in that well-worn wheelhouse. (To be fair, at least Burns doesn’t seem as glaringly out of place here as Megan Fox.) It also doesn’t help that this trailer essentially lays out the entire film, hitting upon every stage of Scott and Westfeldt’s dawning duh recognition beat for beat. But still, if anyone can overcome the obvious it’s this cast, and the warm reception Friends got at TIFF suggests it might worth spending more time with them than just this preview.