Libelous Pen

Midway through “Knocked Up,” a woman follows her husband’s car to a house where she expects to find him in bed with another woman.
Instead, she walks in on him drinking beer and talking sports with a roomful of middle-aged dads in professional baseball jerseys.
While she’s relieved he wasn’t sleeping with another woman, she’s absolutely crushed that he cheated on her with, of all things, a fantasy baseball draft.
It’s a joke that sticks in your throat and a typical example of the should-I-laugh-or-cry humor embedded throughout “Knocked Up,” an engaging, Woody-Allen-meets-Harold-Ramis sex comedy with a heart as deep as its mean streak.
Continuing in the steps of the wildly funny “The 40-Year-Old Virgin,” writer/director Judd Apatow pieces together this summer’s smartest, funniest film guised as dumb stoner comedy.
Bong-in-hand and 30 pounds overweight, Ben Stone (Seth Rogen) seems destined for a life of Cheeto crumbs, skin flicks and pot smoke. He is, after all, still living off the lawsuit money awarded to him
by the British Columbia government after a postal truck ran over his foot.
Playing ensemble to Ben are pals Jayson, Jay, Jonah, Martin and Jodi (all hilarious), Ben’s roommates and fellow “fleshofthestars.com,” business partners, a still-under-construction Web site devoted to the naked flesh of Hollywood starlets.
Circumstance intervenes after an, um, prolific, one night stand with blond babe and “E!” television station anchor Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl).
Their baby soon starts baking in the oven as Alison Scott nearly barfs morning sickness all over her interviewee.
Many a disposable pregnancy test later, Ben and Alison agree to bring the child into the world. Playing foils to the newly parents-to-be are Pete (Paul Rudd) and Alison’s sister Sadie (Lesile Mann), a tortured couple trapped in an exploding relationship tied together haphazardly for the sake of the kids.
What makes it new instead of cliché is that “Knocked Up” treats its subjects with bare knuckles: feelings get obliterated and the characters do things they wouldn’t in lesser films.
Oh, and it’s filthy. Writer Judd Apatow has an ear for the way people, mid-20s-men especially, really talk, the f-bombs flying as fast as references to Back to the Future’s Doc Brown.
Sure, some might be turned off by Apatow’s realism and their heads will probably explode in the climax of the final act. Suffice it to say, “Knocked Up,” features the most subversive sight gag you’ll ever see.
The heart of the film isn’t about filth or fury, though; it’s about love and suffering. Ben and Alison are two flesh and bone human beings who don’t want to grow old just yet.
Ben (an astonishing turn by Seth Rogen) has his bongs and buddies; Alison has her looks and TV career. When a child threatens it all, they bite down and bear it, fearfully.
Apatow first staked out a name for himself in the late 1990s with his television drama “Freaks and Geeks,” an unflinching and funny look at marginalized high schoolers in a Michigan suburb.
“Knocked Up,” is proof that Apatow’s beloved freaks and geeks, lovable, quirky characters we all know — are, with regret, finally growing up.