Birth control doesn’t come much more surreptitiously effective than this harrowing riff on Heidi Murkoff’s bestselling pregnancy guide – the latest in Hollywood’s recent line of ghastly ensemble romcoms in which a handful of truncated, tenuously linked storylines allow for maximum star wattage and minimum screenwriting effort. (See New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day – or, better yet, don’t.) Jennifer Lopez, Cameron Diaz and Elizabeth Banks are among the A-listers awaiting the pitter-patter of tiny feet in a film that aims to elicit smiles of recognition from women who have been through it all before. But, unless you’ve engineered a meet-cute out of a miscarriage, or think that calling an unco-ordinated toddler a ‘spaz’ is a real comedic zinger, chances are you won’t identify much with these shrill, self-absorbed parents-to-be. Lopez brings some conviction to her stock role as an infertile would-be mum; Cheryl Cole rather less to her cameo as a TV talent-show judge. Bringing a
child into the world is no laughing matter – and all involved seem to have done their level best to make things as mirthless as possible.

Guy Lodge

From Time Out New York

Dir Kirk Jones, category IIA, 110 mins, opens on June 7