Life As We Know It

Greg Berlanti kills the parents in the first few minutes: they die in a crash just after Sophie’s first birthday and everything after rests on a guardianship arrangement. Instead of mourning there is a house, a rota and a social worker’s visit. This is Berlanti’s second feature as director; between them he spent a decade in TV, running Dawson’s Creek at twenty eight and creating Everwood. Scenes here resolve on a closing line, as episodes do. Shooting ran through autumn 2009 in Atlanta: Holly’s bakery was the Belly General Store in Virginia-Highland, Eric’s workplace the Turner Broadcasting building. Sophie was played in turn by triplets Alexis, Brynn and Brooke Clagett; Berlanti says the babies’ real job was forcing other actors to be natural. The obstacle late on is not the relationship but a Phoenix job offer and a custody review, so the romance settles when guardianship does. It cost 38 million dollars and took 53 million in North America; reviews stayed cold, the CinemaScore exit poll came back A minus. A good fit if you do not mind a film that closes the loss in its first minutes and gives the rest to childcare and inspection. Not for viewers who expect the paediatrician played by Josh Lucas to stay a real alternative: he goes without a scene that costs anything.