Unpregnant has it's heart in the right place but never quite finds a good groove. It starts out right from the gate as a series of cliches. Popular girl has an unwanted pregnancy. Her so called "friends" are no help and neither is her clueless boyfriend with whom she has absolutely zero chemistry so you can understand exactly why they are together. She can't tell her parents and the only place she can get an abortion without their consent is 3 states away. So she turns to her childhood best friend, from whom she is now estranged, and who has become a nerdy outsider, for a road trip to get to the clinic to do what she needs to do.
Framed as a comedy, Unpregnant looks for laughs, often to the point of forcing them. It takes some absurd turns along the way as it explores the rather predictable narrative of the friends reconnecting over this untenable situation. It manages to be entertaining enough and its two leads are both charismatic making it more watchable than it should be. Despite making the obvious choice at every turn the film still makes you smile occasionally. But only occasionally. More often than not it feels like it's going through the motions.
Unpregnant never finds honest kernels of truth. Every emotional moment seems trite. It really felt like they were trying, and I wanted to buy into these young women's stories, but the film kept making them 2-dimensional the whole way. So by the end, the film feels like it's telling us instead of showing us.
Unpregnant
Starring: Haley Lu Richardson, Barbie Ferreira, Alex MacNicoll, Breckin Meyer, Giancarlo Esposito, Mary McCormack, Denny Love
Director: Rachel Lee Goldenberg
Writers: Jenni Hendricks, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, William Parker, Ted Caplin, Rachel Lee Goldenberg
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