After its Netflix debut, Amy Schumer’s new project, “Actually, I’m Pregnant,” has sparked a fierce debate among viewers and critics. While some propelled the motherhood-themed comedy into the platform’s top 10 most-watched films (with over 2.5 million views), others slammed it on Rotten Tomatoes, resulting in a current score of just 22%. As is often the case, the truth lies somewhere in between: “Actually, I’m Pregnant” isn’t the strongest conclusion to Schumer’s comedic trilogy on modern womanhood (“Trainwreck,” “I Feel Pretty”), but it’s a quintessential streaming-era rom-com – predictable, comforting, and filled with genre clichés.
The Plot Thickens: A Comedy of Errors
The story revolves around Lainy (Schumer), a Brooklyn elementary school teacher yearning to marry her boyfriend, Dave (Damon Wayans Jr.). He does propose, but not in the way she hopes. Lainy’s spirits plummet further when her best friend, Kate (Gillian Bell), now married and pregnant, begins to drift away. Lainy, who has dreamed of being a wife and mother since childhood, takes a drastic step: she fakes a pregnancy with a prosthetic belly. This “interesting” condition helps her find new friends and social support. Ironically, it’s during this time that she meets Josh (Will Forte), a charming guy who is completely unaware of her deception.
Schumer’s Personal Touch: A Reflection of Real Life?
“Actually, I’m Pregnant” is impossible to view separately from Amy Schumer herself, who has always infused her projects with autobiographical elements. In “Trainwreck,” she explored how the early loss of her father impacted her relationships with men. In “I Feel Pretty,” she re-evaluated her unconventional appearance in light of societal standards. Her recent series, “Life & Beth,” even tackled the question of a midlife existential crisis. In “Actually, I’m Pregnant,” Schumer attempts to re-examine her own relatively recent experience with pregnancy – she became a mother for the first time in late 2018. The birth was difficult; due to Schumer’s diagnosed endometriosis, doctors had to perform a cesarean section. In 2021, amid a worsening of the disease, the actress had to have her uterus removed.
Missed Opportunities: Motherhood on the Surface
Unfortunately, “Actually, I’m Pregnant” speaks too casually about the realities of motherhood, if it speaks about them at all. Pregnancy in the film is merely a convenient hook for humorous acrobatics that aren’t particularly reliable and don’t aspire to any depth. Happy Madison Productions, owned by Adam Sandler, likely played a significant role in the production of “Actually, I’m Pregnant.” The film even features cameos from his wife, Jackie, and older daughter, Sunny. In recent years, Netflix has released several Sandler projects (“Murder Mystery,” “Hubie Halloween”) with very unpretentious production values. These are typically formulaic genre films made for background viewing or large gatherings.
A Step Backwards? Schumer’s Risky Move
Postpartum Amy Schumer is once again swimming against the tide, creating a film about pregnancy that simply lacks a positive or even realistic experience of motherhood – but it does have gags about farts and threesomes. “Actually, I’m Pregnant” is a situational comedy in which everything once again boils down to “they lived happily ever after” in a manner that is not very realistic and outdated for the genre. For Netflix, which has actively supported progressive “new wave” rom-coms (“Set It Up,” “Persuasion”) for the past five years, low-budget projects like “Actually, I’m Pregnant” are unlikely to pose a serious reputational risk, but Schumer may well lose the trust and support of her many fans.