studioAT If 'Sixteen Candles' was John Hughes on the way up to his classic films like 'Pretty in Pink' and 'The Breakfast Club' then this film unfortunately is him on the way down.There's lots of the things we've come to expect from his films, but the move into more serious issues, and a less witty script means that this one isn't as fondly remembered as Hughes's previous outings.Bacon and McGovern do their best, as does Alec Baldwin, but it just feels like there's a big song missing from the soundtrack, or an iconic moment missing that would have elevated this film from being average to something great.

The_Film_Cricket 'She's Having a Baby' is an interesting exercise in the oldest most simple kind of story hendered by stupid gimmicky side-plots that pull it down like dead weight.At the center is a pure, honest, likable couple played by Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth McGovern. There aren't two more winning personalities in the movies. Bacon has a strong presence and a good personality. The Invaluable Elizabeth McGovern has one of the most honest faces that I have seen in a movie. When she says she loves him, she has a certain way of holding herself that leaves absolutely no doubts in my mind.The movie tracks the progression of their first years of marriage from the wedding to their first child. We meet them on their wedding day where Bacon (like the groom in almost every movie) is a sweating, nervous wreck fearful that he is giving up his freedom.They move into a condo that is more mortgage then home. Bacon gets a low-level job with an ad agency and after a few years the rest of the family hints that it might be time to have a baby. So, the rest of the movie shows their efforts at conception.This is all well and good and if the movie had stayed with the simple plot detail that I just described, this would have been a better movie. The problem is that it keeps throwing in a lot of distracting, unnecessary plot baggage. For example, after the two move to the suburbs, they are surrounded by the usual gallery of suburbanites including the men who are more interested in their lawn mowers then their wives and wives discuss their husband as if they were children. This all culminates in a stupid Busby Berkly-type dance sequence involving lawnmowers.Clichéd characters abound in this film including McGovern's parents who absolutely hate their daughter's new husband and bad mouth him at every turn. Another cliché: Bacon's best friend played by Alec Baldwin keeps hitting on McGovern while Bacon keeps having fantasies about the same beautiful woman and begins to have longings for his bachelor freedom.On top of all of that, there are silly fantasy moments as when Bacon finds out that McGovern is pregnant and envisions himself being hurled screaming toward a brick wall. Or the moment when they get married and the minister reads off a laundry list of duties that Bacon is to perform in order to make her happy. Or the typical panic-stricken tailspin that Bacon goes into when McGovern goes into labor.This is a case of less is more. I liked the quiet moments in this movie which are wedged in between the gimmicks. The small romantic moment between the couple are very sweet and touching. Because these two actors are masters of emotional depth I had no trouble believing that their were honestly and passionately in love.The movie ends with one of the most emotional scenes I can remember. A complication arises when McGovern goes into labor and Bacon sits in the waiting room. The scene is done so beautifully that I longed for what the rest of the film could have been if it weren't trying so hard to be cute. 'She's Having a Baby' could have been an effective movie had the director had the nerve to trim the fat.

claytonchurch1 If you got married and had at least one kid, you'll appreciate this movie a lot.Negatives:1. There's nothing to brag about in the acting, though Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth McGovern do a nice job. 2. The script is just okay, and holds back what could have been a much better film.Positives:1. There are so few movies that focus on marriage, getting married, having a baby, living with your kids, or even a gut-wrenching divorce. I appreciate when a filmmaker takes on these subjects, which touch a lot of the population, but rarely are addressed in film. They are powerful subjects to which many, many people relate. However, the lion's share of films deal with meeting somebody and getting together--at most going to a proposal--but they don't deal with anything that follows that. This movie covers what follows, and anyone who has been through it can relate to the various issues through which you go in a normal relationship like this. 2. The labor and delivery segment of the film was pretty well done, and I enjoyed it a lot.Recommendation:Watch this movie, since there are so few movies that deal with the subject matter.The movie "Marley and Me" (Owen Wilson & Jennifer Aniston) actually deals with all these things much better, with better acting and a better script. I know, that's a dog movie, but it's really not – it's really a movie about getting married, beginning careers, living as a married couple, and having kids. Other good movies in this category are "The War of the Roses" (Michael Douglas & Kathleen Turner), "Price Check" (Eric Mabius & Parker Posey), Regarding Henry" (Harrison Ford & Annette Benning), and "The Story of Us" (Bruce Willis & Michelle Pfeiffer).

Pepper Anne She's Having a Baby is very much like Kevin Bacon's later film, 'He Said, She Said,' in which moments of a story are articulated from the perspective of each gender. But while 'He Said, She Said,' provided humorous views of love and life from both the shovinist male and the over-confident female, 'She's Having a Baby' provides only the perspective of one person: a very nervous and doubting husband. It is interesting to me, at least, as there are few movies which dedicate the entire experience of married life solely to the male perspective, and I suppose that John Hughes, the film's writer and director, is telling the story from his own personal experiences, fears, expectations, and other approaches to his life as a husband and father.I have always like John Hughes work, and despite some of the sexism and cliches that the story deals with, it is an entertaining film about newlyweds unsure about whether getting married was a good idea, but discovering in the end, that despite the obstacles ahead of them, they actually find that married life (and soon, parenthood), can actually quite a wonderful thing. Jake Briggs (Bacon) marries his high school sweetheart, Kristi (McGovern), his love at first sight. The movie introduces us to Jake who is preparing himself (and simultaneoulsy doubting himself) to walk down the isle and declare himself a married man. But for Jake, somehow saying I do, was the point of no return, and his relationship to Kristi (and his perception of her) drastically changes once they officially carry on together as a married couple. Jake finds disatisfaction with his work as an advertising agent (aspiring instead to be a writer, but always being told that it just wasn't going to happen), with the drone life in the suburbs (a typical John Hughes theme), and even gets tempted with indescretions as he meets a woman at a bar who tests his faithfulness to Kristi. For Jake, it seems like the single life had a lot more to offer in both independce as well as his love for Kristi, even to the point that he tries to convince his bachelor friend, Davis (played by that hubba, hubba actor, Alec Baldwin), that he need not be unmarried to enjoy himself. In fact, things start to change for Jake, as he starts to grow accustomed to marriage and finds that the situation isn't as bad as he imagined. When his wife Kristi becomes pregnant and there are complications during the pregnancy, Jake is forced to consider whether he would give it all up. And in that time, he realizes, that he actually doesn't hate it at all. That there are things there that he can adjust (by way of work, we see later that he does take it upon himself to do some writing), and with his relationship to his wife, and hell, even the in-laws. It's hard to say, but folks who are married and who have gone through that 'moment of truth' at some point in their relationship (if at all), must know how that feels. And from the look on Jake's face, it must feel pretty good to realize how lucky a person can be to share that with somebody else.There are some problems with the characters, such as Kristi always been made out as this bossy, detached spouse of Jake's. One viewer wrote that she was often depicted as selfish, and while I agree that it is an unfair assessment of Kristi (who could not have been this way all the time--you have to watch the movie to see), it was also meant to be portrayed from the husbands point of viewed. Therefore, we get the subjective view of the husband, and not the objective view of what we may consider Kristi to be (because nearly the whole movie is told from Jefferson's viewpoint). The story is also stereotypical in some of it's assertions about marriage and work and the like. But I think that the movie still offers some good humor, and is certainly one for John Hughe's fans to see, before he gave up writing and directing teen movies--the 80s films prior to She's Having a Baby, and went on to make children and family films--mostly all of his films made after 1989. And fans of Kevin Bacon are sure to enjoy the movie as well. It's not fantastic, and I'll admit, I never got through watching it the first time. But I gave it a few years and tried again, and though it isn't a great movie, it is one that I would recommend trying out.