NINE MONTHS
A film review by Jer Fairall
Copyright 1996 Jer Fairall
(1995) *** (out of *****) Starring Hugh Grant, Julianne Moore, tom Arnold, Joan Cussak, Robin Williams, Jeff Goldblum Directed By Chris Columbus
"Nine Months" is one of those movies that isn't worth going to the touble of paying a babysitter, getting cleaned up and going out to the theater to see but is just fine when viewed on a small screen with smaller expectations. Hugh Grant playes the polite, somewhat snotty boyfriend of Julianne Moore who at the beginning of the film is starting to think about having a child. Grant objects, of course, and then flips out when he later finds out that his girlfriend is pregnant. During this strife, Grant and Moore are befriended by another expecting couple played by Tom Arnold and Joan Cusak. Arnold is an overbearing boor who manages to make life even more miserable for the distraught Grant. Grant is incredibly nervous about his impending fatherhood which leads to complications in his relationship with Moore. Things are made even more hectic when their doctor turns up sick and and they end up with his new assistant, who is working on his first human pregnancy after being a vetrenarian in Russia. The doctor is played with usual energy by Robin Williams whose mispronunciation of the word "thesarus" provides the movies single biggest laugh. "Nine Months" was directed by Chris Columbus whose previous credits include "Home Alone" "Mrs. Doubtfire" and "Adventures in Babysitting." He doesn't take very many chances in this film particularly with the casting. Everyone in the film is playing their usual type of character. Grant is really doing the same thing here that he did in the overrated "Four Weddings and a Funeral" and even in a much darker film like Roman Polanski's "Bitter Moon" which is that he is always both nervous and charming. Tom Arnold is also doing pretty much here what he did in 1994's "True Lies" and on television as Arnie in "Roseanne" and in his own funny but short lived sitcom "The Jackie Thomas Show." And the rest of the cast, including Joan Cussak and Jeff Goldblum, also give us just what we would expect from them as well. "Nine Months" fails when it goes for scenes of really broad slapstick like the overplayed scene in the delivery room when both Moore and Cussak just happen to both end up in the same room. And I could have really done without the extended sequence in a toy store where Arnold gets into a fight with an insipid Barney the dinosaur clone. Yet "Nine Months" is not without it's charms especially when seen from your sofa.
Review By Jer Fairall jerfairall@aol.com
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