Expecting | Film review - Michelle Monaghan & Radha Mitchell star in half-baked adoption comedy-drama

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Expecting - Radha Mitchell & Michelle Monaghan

Flaky free-spirit Michelle Monaghan gets pregnant after a one-night stand and moves in with childless best friend Radha Mitchell and her husband (Jon Dore), offering to let them adopt the unborn child. The scheme is half-baked and so is would-be quirky comedy-drama Expecting. The characters swear as much as Tarantino gangsters (Monaghan, in particular, behaves as if she has Tourette's), which quickly proves irritating rather than funny. The plot thickens when Dore's recovering addict brother (Michael Weston) moves in, too, but only to the extent of making the drama even stodgier. The cast give it their best shot, but the film remains - sorry, there's no other word - laboured.

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Certificate 15. Runtime 85 mins. Director Jessie McCormack

Available on VOD from 30 June on iTunes, Film Flex, Blinkbox, LoveFilm, Playstation, X-Box, Google Play. http://youtube.com/v/4FMI7NrV2AE

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Jason Best
Jason Best

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.