Not horrible, with a few good laughs.
LIFE AS WE KNOW IT is not horrible, despite the modern romantic comedy genre’s poor, abused track record. The preview screening I attended was full of girls and gays - the latter surely attending in part to glimpse hunky Josh Duhamel in tighty-whiteys, as seen in the poster. (Hey, it caught this gay's attention.) Anyway, as I gritted my teeth through this groaningly obvious and ridiculous plot, I can at least say I did smile sometimes. And the audience I was with ate it up.
We first meet Holly (Heigl) and Eric (Duhamel) on a blind date set up by their mutual best friends Alison and Peter (Christina Hendricks and Hayes MacArthur), who are married to each other. So inconsiderate is Eric to Holly that after showing up an hour late, sans apology, he proceeds to make a booty call from the passenger seat of her car before they've even left for dinner. She tells him off, and that's that. Except it’s not. Since their best friends are a couple, Holly and Eric endure each other’s company again and again, and their hatred for one another only deepens with time. The silliness kicks in after their BFF’s die in a car crash: Holly and Eric are designated in the will as baby Sophie’s joint caretakers -- and (romantic) chaos ensues.
Question: Are our hearts really supposed to bleed for the grieving Holly and Eric when we don't know anything of substance about these characters this early in the movie? If the director had chosen to show literal cardboard cut outs of their friends crumpled in a smashed car -- two-dimensional test dummies -- I would respond with equal indifference. Alison and Peter are cardboard: pretty, bland people with no defining personality traits whatsoever. (Though we do see Peter harass a teen for being high, then confiscate the poor guy’s pot for his own use. Um, dick?)
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