Film Review – Kinda Pregnant

February 6th, 2025 | POSTED BY Allen Almachar

Here now is a premise better suited for a half hour sitcom. We have a misunderstanding that turns into a lie that turns into a frantic situation that could have been avoided had the characters been truthful with one another. Of course, if that were the case we wouldn’t have a movie. And thus, we are forced to bear witness to scene after scene of ridiculous comedy, where we can see the punchlines coming from a mile away and whose plot is so generic we start to forget about it even while watching it. I have no problem with movies being simple escapism from reality – sometimes that is preferred. But they must (at the very least) be entertaining or somewhat compelling. Unfortunately, in this case none of them apply.

Kinda Pregnant (2025) starts off with schoolteacher Lainy (Amy Schumer) going through a drastic life experience. When her boyfriend (Damon Wayans Jr.) doesn’t propose to her as anticipated, Lainy flies off the handle. Things get worse when she discovers that her best friend Kate (Jillian Bell) has become pregnant. Feeling her life goals slipping through her fingers, Lainy puts on a fake baby bump just to see what it feels like. When she notices people being nice and considerate because of her supposed pregnancy, she decides to continue with the ruse. This leads her to befriend Megan (Brianne Howey) whom she met at a prenatal yoga class, as well as Megan’s brother Josh (Will Forte) who turns out to be a possible love interest.

Right off the bat, the comedy doesn’t aim toward clever revelations on pregnancy, motherhood, or raising a family. Instead, it reaches for the lowest common denominator, putting characters in situations that are nearly devoid of humor. Director Tyler Spindel (along with cowriters Shumer and Julie Paiva) structures a narrative that believes that people simply screaming is enough to garner a laugh. In an early scene, Lainy demonstrates her stress by smashing cake in her face, ripping off her dress and twirling it around her head. The scene comes off as more embarrassing than funny. Once Lainy wears the baby bump, we get several physical gags that would put a real pregnant woman and their fetus in jeopardy. I counted multiple instances where Lainy falls directly onto her stomach, lights her stomach on fire, or gestures in a way that makes it way too obvious that she’s pretending to be with child. 

The worst part of Kinda Pregnant is that it doesn’t make its protagonist all that likeable or sympathetic. We learn that Lainy has dreamt of having kids since she was a child, and that acts as her sole motivation for the rest of her life. She comes off as too narcissistic about her own problems, completely dismissing everyone else around her. Jillian and Megan share their own worries, anxieties, and self-doubts about their real pregnancies, but none of it registers to Lainy in a significant way. When Lainy finds herself in a rut, she takes it out on her students. One could argue that her lack of empathy toward others is just a part of her character development – that she starts out this way so that she has room to learn and grow. The problem is that no person would act in such a way. Lainy is a grown up acting like someone who lacks basic understanding of human nature. You know you have a problem when you have a screwball-like comedy and yet your main character still doesn’t seem to fit in a believable way.

If there is a shining light here, it’s Brianne Howey as Megan. She delivers the most convincing performance. She manages to provide some parcel of authenticity when it comes to child-rearing. When Lainy comes over to visit, Megan says she can either take her shoes off or leave them on because of how messy the floor is. As someone who currently has kids, this tiny throwaway line rang true for me. Howey continues with a revealing monologue in her bathroom, where she lets out her feelings about pregnancy, being a mother and wife, and trying to keep her sanity in one piece. This is the one example of the narrative actually trying to find something more meaningful beyond dumb jokes. We could have used a lot more of this kind of scene as opposed to everything else we ended up getting.

 Now would be a good time to bring up my review of You’re Cordially Invited (2025). It shares similarities with Kinda Pregnant in that it features a ridiculous plot, characters yelling at the top of the lungs, and plenty of goofy physical comedy. Yet I had a positive response to it. I found Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon charming in their respective roles, there was a sincerity and sweetness that lifted the material, and several of the jokes were just flat out funny. Kinda Pregnant lacks all of this. It’s shot with a flat and uninteresting visual style, it’s tonally abrasive, and the so-called romance between Lainy and Josh is a non-starter. It’s a collection of one-dimensional characters going through the motions of the story.

Raising a family can be a beautiful, fulfilling, and life altering experience. But it can also be a grueling and exhaustive ordeal. Most times, it’s all these things at once. Sadly, Kinda Pregnant doesn’t offer much when it comes to these themes. In fact, it doesn’t offer much at all.

Amy Schumer, Brianne Howey, Jillian Bell, Julie Paiva, Kinda Pregnant, Reese Witherspoon, Tyler Spindel, Will Ferrell, Will Forte, You're Cordially Invited