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She's Having a Baby (1988)

Rate: 3
Viewed: 7/21

SheHaveBab
7/21: She's Having a Baby is one of the worst John Hughes pictures ever.

I thought I had seen them all, but somehow, this one escaped my attention. Needless to say, it was a major box-office stinker in 1988, grossing $16 million against a budget of $20 million. Right after that, Hughes went back to his tried-and-true formula by doing another John Candy movie entitled Uncle Buck which takes place in Chicago for the umpteenth time.

Well, it's easy to pinpoint where it went wrong, and that's the zero chemistry between Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth McGovern. Once it happened, She's Having a Baby was pretty much DOA. My intelligence got insulted when Kevin Bacon's character started to think about the positive times with his wife as she was near death. John Hughes implemented the flashback technique so much better for Steve Martin in Planes, Trains & Automobiles.

What I don't like is the randomness of one scene to another. Wont to John Hughes' trademark style, I thought the film was a comedy, but it turned out to be a serious drama. True Love with Annabella Sciorra and Ron Eldard has a similar theme except that it stops right after the wedding yet makes a good point about being trapped by the reality of marriage which is something the characters didn't think a lot about.

Let's be real: Elizabeth McGovern sucks. She isn't an actress but a porcelain doll with pretty blue eyes. It's no wonder why her career fizzled out after the 80's. She doesn't do any favors for Kevin Bacon who seems to be out of place constantly. His character's daydreams are annoying, and so is the overbearing music. The neighbor crap is a stupid waste of time.

Not showing up much, Alec Baldwin steals the show with his truth talk. Besides him, do Jake and Kristy have any more friends? And neither has siblings given how much both families have harping on having children? Years pass, and Jake and Kristy still look the same while coming off as strangers to each other. To tell you the truth, I find it very bizarre.

All in all, She's Having a Baby can be summed up as follows: a boy and a girl get married, don't know each other and probably never will, and have a baby, and...the end.