Oh can I join you in the barn???
Well I got to see the movie this afternoon - first show.

I just got home. Very happy and floating on a little

of Alex gorgeousness.
My afternoon started off pretty disastrously though - I got held up on a work telephone call and arrived late at the cinema and then the idiots had the wrong film name above the entry to the screen they said it was showing (it's a multiplex). Finally worked out where I was supposed to be and didn't miss anything, thank God.
There were about 20 people there. No idea if that's good or bad.
So to the film. I really enjoyed it - but I did have a few quibbles - and I will definitely be going back to watch it again (probably more than once).
I know I have no objectivity where Alex is concerned, but I thought he was amazing - beautiful, sweet, convincing, and as gorgeous as he was, the overwhelming thing for me was his VOICE!!! God I love surround sound. He had so many wonderful, deep-voiced moments... The first meeting, the first date, the first night together (his smile as he watches her sleep ) ALL fabulous.
I also loved the cheese barn scene - I found it really touching. No histrionics, just someone trying to give bad news to someone trying to take it. Loved it. And the nosebleed line was one of the best in the whole film. I thought he convinced throughout - and I loved that they made him a strong enough character not to be wimpy and soppy. I liked that he was struggling with feeling inadequate for not achieving enough in his life and that it took Zoe to make him think about doing rather than just dreaming.
I liked J Lo too (to my surprise). I thought she was engaging and pretty and convincing as someone used to making her own decisions and not having to take anyone else into account. I also liked Mona and Nana and playground dad was funny. I also liked the stroller store girl (in our version she said some babies are such fat-asses, not fatties - it was funnier).
So overall, all the things I loved most were the romantic elements. I thought these were really strong - and touching. I believed in this romance but I so desperately wanted it to be given more screen time.
The biggest problem for me was for a rom-com, it just wasn't funny enough. The mixture of pretty broad comedy and romance worked in the script - but I laughed a lot more reading it on the page than I did seeing it on screen. Me and the rest of the audience laughed most at the out-takes. It wasn't bad, far from it - it was amusing and I did giggle in a few places but it had SO many set pieces that really only raised a smile when I should have been laughing out loud. The single mothers' group just didn't work for me and I'd have been happier to ditch all of that and put back IN Stan's parents (I missed them - they were a good bit of background for Stan in the script).
I have no idea why, when Stan turned up at Zoe's to say he was "in", they cut the shot of him with the hot dogs and baby books - I think that would have worked beautifully. (Also, minor aside, but the pic of JLo's "old" ass was different from the one in the trailer - weird.)
I also felt the pacing was off (I think Grace said this too). There weren't enough relationship signposts and the period from finding out she was pregnant to being heavily pregnant was far too fast.
But then when you have Stan on the tractor, making pancakes in the middle of the night, and that scene at the end when he's feeding the babies... well, all of my minor issues pale into insignificance.
It was good - but it felt tantalisingly close to being great.
Red