Nine Months (1995)

This 1995 comedy-romance is a reflection of the mores by the late 20th century in America, especially the metropolitan scene. The lead characters are an unmarried couple, Samuel and Rebecca, who have been living together for five years. They have good careers and enjoy life together. They have frequent sex and practice contraception because they haven't wanted to have children. They say they are in love. So far, they have liked the arrangement that might be spoiled if they were to marry. But seeing children in other families, Rebecca asks Samuel if he wouldn't like to have more in life. Samuel has been content and doesn't want to have to change. When she gets pregnant, their lives do change. "Nine Months" has a mixture of comedy and seriousness. But, much of the comedy and some of the dialog is crude or crass. Hugh Grant plays Samuel and Julianne Moore is Rebecca. Tom Arnold, as Marty Dwyer, is the source of much of the crudity of this film. The guy seems to play those roles mostly. What little humor he may add is lost due to his loud and crude antics and dialog. He's a brother-in-law of a mutual friend, Sean Fletcher, played by Jeff Goldblum. The movie has a fine outcome as Samuel changes and is changed by the new life in their lives. Robin Williams has a comedy part as a Russian doctor, and he vies with Arnold for crudity with his dialog. Joan Cusack is a balancing character in the film, with some humor and sense, as Marty's wife, Gail. This film is about finding more in life beyond the sensual pleasures which are self-centered. Rebecca wants more than that, and, in time, Samuel wants it with her. So, he sheds his selfishness. Some people really don't want more in life, so they wouldn't enjoy this type of film. As Sean says, he may wind up all alone in the end. But he'll just keep on going and adjust his attitude to take his mind off of it.

Ah... a romantic comedy from the '90s. Hugh Grant is a successful therapist, high-flying, Porche-driving, skinny, pasty dude with a British accent, i.e. he's got everything going for him. Through an astonishing lack of communication and birth control knowledge his girlfriend gets knocked up and immediately decides that his whole life needs to change or she's outta there, like trading his 2-seater Porche for a boring family car and shopping at Walmart to "save money". In the paranoid thinking of the time, she even wants him to get rid of his elderly cat out of fear of toxoplasmosis. His freakin cat!Not surprisingly he nopes outta that sh*t and of course now he's the bad guy that just needs to grow up. Bad friends and worse family convince him that his former rock-star lifestyle was empty and cheap, and explain that as soon as he looks into his new baby's eyes "everything will make sense". Didn't matter that he was a successful professional, good looks, nice car, no. Really, the "grow up" part is code for "make it all about her." And make it all about her he does! Cue a bunch of 50's-60's R+B as Hugh thoughtfully thinks of the baby and his shrew girlfriend, and reads "What to expect when you're expecting", cause of course, the 90's were all about convincing men that when your wife is pregnant, you better get double preggers or you're a deadbeat, man. I know I'm harping on the emasculation angle, but boy does this film roll in it. The estrogen pours off the screen in buckets as already effeminate Hugh Grant gets what last, scant evidence of his manhood sand-blasted away by Moore's Oscar- worthy rendition of a charmless, moody harpy. At least if Hugh is gonna throw it away, convince us that Julianne is maybe slightly worth it, but no, she vacillates between wounded bird whose man has abandoned her, and humorless, uncompromising chore. I give this one 2 stars just because it's a cautionary tale to remind young men to use proper birth control, but I simultaneously warn it may inflict thoughts of wanting to stab oneself in the neck with a pencil to distract from the on-screen agony. Watch this if you hate your life and would like to see another's destroyed.

This is a strange movie in a lot of ways. It's supposed to be a comedy except that it really isn't very funny, there are some issues involved with the casting and the characters, and while it's a comedy that isn't all that funny (or, for that matter, a romance that isn't all that romantic) there are parts of it that actually work reasonably well.Hugh Grant (who plays Samuel) is not someone I consider to be an "A" list actor. He's pretty one dimensional - always seeming to play variations on the same character: the lost and confused romantic, whose life just isn't working out the way he wants. As Samuel, he's a guy who has it pretty good. He's a successful child psychologist, he's living with a beautiful woman (Rebecca, played by Julianne Moore) and everything's great until the day Rebecca tells him that she's pregnant. Samuel has no dreams of being a father, and his life and relationship with Rebecca go downhill from there. The most interesting part of the movie to me was watching Samuel's evolution from a guy who was totally uninterested in fatherhood to being a guy desperate to hold on to his new family. Grant did well with the role. He didn't overwhelm - he never does; he's just not that type of actor - but he was solid.The weaknesses in this movie revolved around the comedic elements. Yes, there were some funny moments, but there weren't enough truly funny moments for this to qualify as a really solid comedy. The real problem was that the movie often tried too hard to be funny. It went way overboard. That was, in part, a problem with the cast. Tom Arnold was cast as Marty Dwyer. He and his wife meet Samuel and Rebecca at the start of the movie. His wife Gail is also having a baby, and the two couples enter into a sometimes reluctant relationship. I've never been a big fan of Arnold, and once again he grates on me a little bit here, and his character comes across as irritating rather than funny. Then there was Robin Williams as Dr. Kosevich, the obstetrician who has just arrived from Russia and has never delivered a human baby before. Williams puts on a pretty typical, slapstick Robin Williams performance in the role - but this character was way too over the top and added very little to the movie except a real feeling of total unbelievability.And yet, watching Samuel grow in his level of comfort with pending fatherhood is satisfying. He makes a difficult evolution from a character at the start of the movie for whom you have very little sympathy, to a character who becomes very sympathetic, and who you end up rooting for as he tries to put the pieces of his life back together. You expect that a degree of comedy might come from the idea that Samuel is a child psychologist who doesn't want children, but that really isn't central to the movie (and, all things considered, I can actually see why a child psychologist might not want children - after all, he's going to see all the problems!) It's just watching him grow from a guy who's part selfish and part frightened to a guy increasingly comfortable and then even enthusiastic about fatherhood. The ending is perhaps a bit sappy, but also very appropriate to the story.It's not a great comedy. If you want something to give you a lot of laughs - look elsewhere. But it's not a bad movie really, if you can get past the excesses of Arnold and Williams. (6/10)

This movie was a huge good surprise to me. I didn't see the reviews before watching it, but just after when I decided to read more about it. This movie made me laugh and enjoy all the funniest moments and also the romantic moments in its story. I love comedies and this one is one of the funniest I ever saw. Robin Williams did a great job. And Hugh Grant cause me a great good impression in this movie. After watching him in Nothing Hill, I kinda disliked his work as actor. But he caused me a good impression with this one. I am glad I didn't read any reviews before watching the movie. So I highly encourage you to watch Nine Months and be prepared to have fun and laugh a lot.