This has been a very bad year for the romantic comedy, with film after film flopping at the box office. It seems that the genre of cute star-crossed couples has just about run its course. Though in Hollywood, hope of that big score keeps the flicks coming down the pike. The latest is Life as We Know It, a film with a bitter little pill mixed in the subplot.
The film starts with a date that goes from bad to worse in a few seconds. Bakery owner Holly (Katherine Heigl) and NBA technical director Messer (Josh Duhamel) are on a date that doesn’t even make it out the driveway. These two have nothing in common except two mutual friends. We get a slow montage of the life where the two friends get married and have a baby Sophie. Tragedy strikes soon and little Sophie, at barely one, is orphaned.
Then we come to the major beat of the film. The deceased couple had decided that in the event of both parents dying, Holly and Messer are to take care of Sophie in their house. This comes as a shock to both of them, neither wanting to give up their lives to co-raise a baby. The first idea is to find someone else in either family to take over this job. When they realize that nobody else is suitable, they bite the bullet and agree to move into the house.
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