3375. Labor Pains (2009)

Starring: Lindsay Lohan, Cheryl Hines, Luke Kirby

Director: Lara Shapiro

Running Time: 90 mins

Labor Pains is an American film about a publishers’ assistant who pretends to be pregnant in order to keep her job, and soon finds herself ascending the ranks of her company on the back of the big lie.

I’m still not entirely sure what I think of Labor Pains. It’s either a masterpiece of guilty pleasure filmmaking, or a painfully generic and simply terrible comedy. I don’t know, but what I do know is that I actually had quite a bit of fun with this movie, as bad as I’m sure it is.

With a genuinely likable lead performance from Lindsay Lohan, Labor Pains overcomes the obstacle of a ridiculous comedy with irritating characters. As preposterous as the premise is, you do actually sympathise with Lohan’s character, and the reasons for which she does what she does.

Plus, there’s nothing that morally reprehensible about pretending to be pregnant. That being said, that makes the alleged ‘jeopardy’ of Lohan’s façade being found out rather less interesting, but there’s nothing purely hateful or idiotic about her character, which is a trap many comedies can fall into.

Now, I’m not going to pretend that Labor Pains is some kind of genius work of comedy. It’s a silly film with a silly premise, and there’s not much more to it than that. It’s not laugh-out-loud hilarious, and the story is extremely predictable, painfully so in fact towards the latter part of the film.

However, if you’re looking for something so light-hearted that you can really enjoy without even thinking for a moment, then Labor Pains is your film. Sweet at times and most importantly never grating or irritating, the movie is, as bad as it may seem on the surface, a really rather enjoyable watch, even if it might have to rank as one of my bigger guilty pleasures out there. So, that’s why I’m giving Labor Pains a 7.0 overall.