Kinda Pregnant is poorly conceived and kinda horrible

MPAA Rating: R
Reel Rating: 1 out of 5 reels

Hours after releasing the trailer for Kinda Pregnant, the internet was inundated with backlash against the film not seen since the days of Sonic the Hedgehog. Of course, this also sparked interest. Could it really be as bad as it seemed?

Writer and star Amy Schumer is well known for her crude and scatological humor. How would that work when combined with the family values that are typical for stories about pregnancy? Not well. Maybe not as bad as the worst online trolls imagined, but still really, really poorly.

Lainy Newton (Amy Schmumer) has wanted a family since she was a little girl and soon might get her wish. Her boyfriend Dave (Damon Wayans) is taking her to a fancy restaurant for a “big announcement.” Yet her enthusiasm is shortly lived, as Dave announces he wants a threesome and even introduces some possibilities candidates, all much more attractive than her. Lainy prompts dumps him, but not without making a profanity-laced scene.

To make matters worse, her married best friend Kate (Julian Bell) tells her that she is pregnant. Lainy pretends to be happy for her, but seethes with envy. While maternity shopping with Kate, she tries on a fake baby bump and is hooked. She wears it on the train, goes to pregnancy yoga, and even starts a new relationship as an expectant mother.

All of this is doomed to fail, and that’s where the humor should come from.

Schumer rose to prominence in the mid-2010s with the sketch show Inside Amy Schumer, which was the Comedy Central spiritual successor to Chappelle Show with humor that focused on feminism and women’s issues rather than racial comedy, but just as edgy and clever. Like many comedians, she then shifted to stand-up and movies, with Trainwreck being her best. In 2018, she got married and the following year had her first child.

Like Tim Burton and Big Fish, there was a question of whether parenthood had softened her approach and shifted her style. It had not. Her arsenal of gross out humor about the female anatomy remains, as does her allegiance to the feminist cause. Throughout the film, the audience is continually reminded that all these pregnant women freely and deliberately choose to allow their children to enter the world. They even use the Seinfeld line about abortion, saying, “I’m not getting one, not that there’s anything wrong with that.” There are a few rare moments of genuine laughs, but they only come when Schumer abandons her regular schtick for situational humor.

There’s a strong sense that Kinda Pregnant is trying, ever so subtly, to appeal to family-oriented adults who worry about groceries, change diapers in the middle of the night, and (gulp!) go to church. But it rings hollow. One pregnant character states, without a hint of irony or sarcasm, that “the most important relationship you’ll have is with yourself.” That philosophy is completely antithetical to parenting, even deadly.

There’s no sense of self-sacrifice or embracing the difficulties of life. Characters are told numerous times that they are beautiful or strong despite their pregnancy, as if it was an obstacle. If this is the case, why become parents in the first place?

Like so many in Hollywood, Schumer wants to have her cake and eat it too. She wants to branch out from her image but refuses to abandon her sin or to mature as a person. Some might be tempted to see Kinda Pregnant as an example of a recent conservative cultural wave. If it is, it is a movement doomed to failure.

Yet lovers of comedy shouldn’t fear. There are plenty of places to get genuine pro-life humor. Lucille Ball’s thirty second pregnancy observation of getting off the couch is funnier than this entire film. Meanwhile, Kinda Pregnant is stuck being kinda horrible.