Knocked Up

Knocked Up is Judd Apatow's most honest film — a comedy about an accidental pregnancy between two people who have absolutely nothing in common except the baby growing between them. Seth Rogen's Ben Stone is a lovable slacker living off a legal settlement, getting high with his roommates, and building a website that catalogs celebrity nude scenes. Katherine Heigl's Alison Scott is an ambitious E! Entertainment host whose one-night stand with Ben produces consequences that neither of them is remotely prepared for.

The film's secret weapon is its honesty about relationships. The Paul Rudd and Leslie Mann subplot — a married couple slowly destroying each other with resentment and codependence — is funnier and more painful than most dramas about marriage. Rudd's Pete, sneaking away to watch fantasy baseball drafts, is every married man who has carved out a secret pocket of freedom. Mann's Debbie, furious that she is aging while the world rewards youth, is raw in a way that Apatow's other films only approach.

Apatow's filmmaking philosophy — let scenes run long, let actors improvise, find the truth in the comedy — is at its peak here. The mushroom trip in Las Vegas. The crowning scene, shot with graphic realism that had audiences screaming. Knocked Up argues that growing up is not the end of fun. It is the beginning of a different kind of fun, one that involves responsibility and terror and love.