FILM REVIEW
LIFE AS WE KNOW IT
Cert: 12A
HOLLY and Eric don’t like each other, which means you’ve probably already worked out how this rom com ends, but let’s continue anyway. After their mutual pals Alison and Peter set them up on a disastrous date (she’s stuck up, he’s a cad), Holly (Katherine Heigl) and Eric (Josh Duhamel) keep running into each other at events like their friends’ wedding, and keep on disliking each other. Then their friends die in a car crash, but not before putting it in their will that, in the event of their deaths, Holly and Eric should take custody of their baby daughter Sophie.
On the list of the most cynical contrivances Hollywood can come up with for bringing unlikely couples together, this must rate pretty highly. But what the hey, Alison and Peter left the pair their massive mansion as well (so that Sophie can keep her bedroom – no really). So Holly and Eric move in, and between dealing with pooey nappies, zany neighbours and watching Sophie take her first steps, discover the respective person inside.
Somehow, the film manages to be not entirely terrible. It moves along efficiently, Duhamel gets some laughs, and the teary moments – crassly manipulative though they are – tend to score. But it’s as predictable as a clock, and never justifies the sympathy it wants us to feel for its leads.