L!fe Happens | Film review

Kim (Krysten Ritter) and Deena (Kate Bosworth) are hot young L.A. singles and roommates. But after both bring men home on the same night with just a single condom between them, Kim winds up pregnant. A year later, they’re still hot, young and single, but now Kim’s a mom, too, which puts a crimp in her dating life and drives a wedge between the roomies. It’s Sex and the Kiddie, basically, with all that entails: The actresses have spunky banter, there are a lot of scenes in bars and restaurants, and the comedy is strictly sitcom-level material (although one funny moment will teach ignorant men in the audience—this writer included—something new about lactating).

Ritter, who wrote the screenplay with director Kat Coiro, gave herself a juicy showcase for her talents and charm, and the story will surely resonate with single mothers struggling to balance romance and responsibility. But after a first act full of trenchant observations, L!fe Happens devolves into a series of exhausting mistaken-identity subplots and one-scene-wonder supporting bits from good—and wasted—actors like Jason Biggs and Seymour Cassel. The exclamation point in the title is not a typo, by the way—at least not our typo.