Nine Months (1995)

Nine Months can't make up its mind. Is it a romantic comedy? Is it fun-dumb slapstick? Is it a warm tale of family? Is it a comment on single yuppies? It tries to be all and ends up failing to be any. On the way, it is cliched, offensive, obnoxious, predictable, and DULL. Pity the poor cast, most of them respected actors, who must now find this idiocy forever on their resumes.

On a few occasions, Nine Months just lets go into full-blown, bull moose lunacy, and in those moments it's a lot of fun. The ten minutes or so from the time Julianne Moore goes into labor until she gives birth are hysterical, certainly the best part of the movie.

For the remaining 93 minutes, how many ways can I scream NO!? Shall I start with the relationship between Moore and Hugh Grant? They have been living together for five years, and both say they've been uncommonly happy, and yet they know little about each other. Grant THINKS, but isn't SURE, that Moore uses birth control. He has no clue that Moore wants children, nor does Moore have the least idea that Grant doesn't want them. They behave towards each other like a young couple in their first few months of getting to know each other.

What about poor Joan Cusack, who hasn't got a single line to utter that isn't a cliche pulled off a radio call-in show? ‘Birth is a miracle.' ‘Family is what it's all about.' ‘Sometimes husbands are frustrating but they come around.' Never ONCE does she say a single word that couldn't have been read off of the cover of Redbook. Or Tom Arnold, who thinks he's successfully playing a funny `big oaf' but is really just a creep? I'd believe him in a horror movie (as the horror) but not in a light comedy. Then there's the ENORMOUS misstep of making Hugh Grant a child psychologist, despite the fact that he's painfully uncomfortable around children. This is meant as comedy, but is so unbelievable, and so obviously detrimental to his clients, that it's just painful. Finally, what about the fact that two educated professionals seem to know nothing about reproduction or their own bodies? That isn't a joke, it's a tragedy!

Finally, we have the hideous way that people treat each other, as though it's all funny. Is it funny that Julianne Moore packs up and leaves Hugh Grant, slamming the door behind her while he's trying to talk to her, because he's been distant and uninvolved? Yet HE is the one expected to apologize, `grow up,' and do her unreasonable bidding by the final reel. Yuck.