REVIEW: 'The Back-Up Plan' Above-Average RomCom

Very few romantic comedies these days manage to get both the romance and the comedy right. But the surprisingly well-written, deftly cast and impressively scored new film “The Back-Up Plan” manages to be a rare success on both fronts.

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What’s even more surprising is that the film serves as the comeback vehicle for Jennifer Lopez after a string of cinematic bad luck that includes what is easily regarded as one of the 10 worst films ever made (“Gigli”), a film that went straight to DVD – “Bordertown” – and the poorly received “El Cantante,” in which she co-starred with her husband, Latin singing superstar Marc Anthony. But J. Lo has proven her ability to charm audiences in her fair share of hits (“Maid in Manhattan,” “The Wedding Planner”) as well, and she delivers a wonderfully rounded performance here.

Lopez portrays Zoe, a woman approaching 40 without Mr. Right in tow (I know, this seems impossible with a woman of J. Lo’s beauty, but she makes it work). But she wants a kid, so she enacts her back-up plan: artificial insemination. The film follows Zoe as she visits the sperm bank right before finally meeting Stan, the dude who wins her heart (Aussie actor Tom O’Laughlin, who shows the charm that built him a rabid cult following playing a vampire on the former CBS series “Moonlight.”)

Stan is a cheese maker and salesman who is secretly trying to finish college late in life, and after they meet-cute, fight and then develop the inevitable mutual attraction, they gradually decide to reinvent the typical relationship playbook and turn her single-motherhood into a shot at a lasting relationship. So far, so cliché, right?

Yet writer Karen Angelo, a veteran of TV sitcoms like “Becker” and “Will & Grace,” makes the film zing with plenty of great one-liners from a multitude of characters and pop with plenty of physical humor as well. Such quality writing no doubt attracted the sterling cast, which features everyone from ancient comic pros Robert Klein, Tom Bosley and Linda Lavin to great new faces like “SNL” breakout actress Michaela Watkins in the role of Zoe’s best friend, who’s always loudly dishing out way too much information about her promiscuous single days and her post-childbirth body.

Meanwhile, veteran character actor Anthony Anderson (now a star on “Law and Order”) provides the same hilarious counterpoint to O’Loughlin in a couple of quick but memorable scenes. Yet some of the best moments come about through an outrageous series of sessons Zoe shares with a single mothers’ group, leading to a tour de force childbirth scene that had the audience rolling with Zoe and Stan’s reactions to the horrific sights and sounds of watching a home-based birth in a plastic swimming pool.

Director Alan Poul (HBO’s “Six Feet Under”) pulls it all together with an impressive sweep, effectively balancing serious emotional scenes (which are still kept to an essential minimum) and the comedic ones. He also does a fine job with an extensive sequence set on Stan’s country farm, providing a nice change of pace and adding a sense of scope to the film’s city scenes . And it’s not often that I comment on a film’s score unless it’s gratingly bad (the recent “Cop Out,” for instance), but Stephen Trask provides music that’s a true pleasure, adding to both the film’s classy tone and sense of perky uplift.

By now, you’ll have probably noticed that the film addresses these issues in a purely secular fashion, without passing judgment on what in real life would be complex or highly questionable moral situations. So, your enjoyment of “The Back-Up Plan” will partly hinge on whether you’re able to separate the film and see it in simple fictional entertainment terms. If so, put it all together and “The Back-Up Plan” is a perfect date night film that should be first on any couple’s list of a great movie night this weekend.