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A Major Disappointment

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

That pretty sums it up! I was really hoping that this film would be still part the period where you could REALLY have fun in front of a romantic comedy . By that, I mean before the horrifying amount of ghastly Bridget Jones imitations started to invade theaters with silly plots filled with empty-headed and unsympathetic characters, not to mention unbelievable situations. "Maybe Baby" adds insult to injury by purely and simply riping off John Hughes' delightful classic from the late 80s. A time where you could spend your money on a mainstream movie without systematically feeling totally mugged. The nice bunch of co-stars doesn't save this poor excuse for a film either: Joanna Lumley is wasted, Rowan Atkinson's hamming doesn't help a bit, Emma Thompson is just passing through, and so on and so on... On top of that, all is so unbearably neat and tidy like in a clinic, that you could fear to have been impregnated without knowing it while watching this junk. I'll have to see "Rosemary's Baby" again and again to forget that terrible experience. As for the 90 minutes lost, well, so much for my naivety!

If you ever get into an argument about whether writers should be allowed to adapt their own books (based on their own life experiences) for the screen - and then get to direct what they have written, then cite this movie as an example as to why it should never be allowed.The basic premise of the movie is fine: a couple cannot conceive. They undergo IVF. He writes a film script based on the experience without telling her, reading her secret diary to get "the woman's angle". She finds out. They separate but are reconciled.Where the film fails (and this is where my argument about letting writers direct comes in) is in the dialogue. The speeches in this thing are so stodgy. So wordy. Everything sounds like it came straight off the page of the book. Everybody talks all the time in well rounded complete paragraphs. Speeches that might read well on the page of a novel will sound clumsy and stilted if acted without some revision, cutting, some paring down. In real life, people just don't talk like they do in books. In real life, people just don't talk like they do in this movie - not even smug rich London media types. There was no natural rhythm to the conversations and I felt really sorry for the actors having to deliver this stuff, and they had to deliver so much of it. The performances suffered as a result. No one was believable in their characters except maybe Adrian Lester, who has a talent for shining out in bad British movies. He shone out again, solely I suspect by virtue of having some of the shortest lines in the whole thing.The music was pretty dreadful too - especially the moment when, abandoned by his wife, Hugh Laurie has to stand there being miserable with Westlife telling us he's miserable on the soundtrack. WE GET THE MESSAGE!Ben Elton is, famously, one of the father figures of the "Alternative Comedy" boom back in the Eighties which lambasted the cosy unreal clichéd world that British comedy had become. It's sad then to see him turn out this bloated unamusing movie which is about as unfunny, and unconnected from reality as any episode Terry and June (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0135736/). It runs for 101 minutes and feels like half that again. The whole movie is about babies, and one thing I do know about babies is they grow up. They become their own people, start to live lives of their own. Elton should have let his baby go. In the hands of a scriptwriter and a director who could step back from the story and take a more objective approach this could have been a really good film.

I was lucky enough to catch this movie on WE last night and at first, yeah there was a lot of sex in it, but the movie wasn't about that. The movie was about two people in love with each other who desperately wanted a baby. I absolutely loved Joely Richardson as Lucy. Her part was probably the most endearing thing about this movie. Everything she writes in her diary--from the Beatrix Potter to why women feel the need to create life--was so eloquently put. I think infertility is a struggle that a lot of women deal with, but it's not something you hear about everyday. I think this movie was refreshingly honest about approaching this subject and I found myself wiping away tears at certain parts.

The story in this film is a good one, it covers a miserable topic but tries to humour it. "Tries" is the definitive word here; the acting from both lead roles was appalling, I was particularly surprised by Hugh Laurie whose acting I have seen before and has been excellent. The leads, Joely Richardson and Hugh Laurie, acted at best, woodenly. At any potentially humorous or otherwise emotional part the lead would inevitably screw up; either through a bizarre facial expression, a poorly expressed piece of dialogue or just a look of vacant disinterest. Throughout the film you feel that leads' heart are not really in it, they needed some quick money, so they looked for the highest paying script and signed on.The film is one that would have thrived on emotion, alas none is forthcoming.