'Kinda Pregnant' review: Amy Schumer delivers in raunchy romcom

WHAT IT’S ABOUT When single schoolteacher Lainy (Amy Schumer) accompanies her pregnant friend Kate (Jillian Bell) to a maternity-clothing shop, she spots a fake foam belly and gets an idea: Why not try it on and play make believe? Suddenly treated like a queen by the saleslady, Lainy decides to waddle into the street and keep the ruse going.

Joining an elite segment of New York society — the expecting — Lainy finds new friends and a sense of belonging. The clock is ticking on her big lie, though, especially when she meets Josh (Will Forte), a nice guy who is clearly falling for her, bump and all.

MY SAY Everywhere you look these days, women are dynamiting the myths that traditionally defined them. They’ve taken on marriage (Miranda July’s novel “All Fours”), sex (the controversial drama “Babygirl”), monogamy (Molly Roden Winter’s memoir “More”) and motherhood (the Amy Adams vehicle “Nightbitch”). Amy Schumer’s raunchy romcom for Netflix, “Kinda Pregnant,” may not generate the kind of chin-stroking op-ed pieces those other works have, but it’s in the same ballpark. It’s an honest and often funny look at the pressures, humiliations and disappointments of pregnancy, along with the joys.

It's also a welcome return for the Rockville Centre-raised Schumer, whose profile has seemed somewhat low since “Expecting Amy,” a 2020 miniseries in which she chronicled her own difficult pregnancy. Schumer is a natural as Lainy — good-hearted, eager to please, yet always the butt of life’s jokes. In the film’s first half, she falls down a flight of stairs in an upscale restaurant, nearly burns down her school and almost drowns a co-worker. If the slapstick here generally leaves a little to be desired, the dialogue often makes up for it: Lainy’s increasingly strange explanations for her pregnancy (she at one point credits a DoorDash driver) make for a good running gag.

The film also benefits from a fairly strong cast. Bell (of “Saturday Night Live” and “Eastbound & Down”) is both funny and moving as Kate, who has her own problems, including a clueless husband (Joel David Moore), morning sickness and gray hairs in a shocking new place.

Brianne Howey takes the limited role of Megan, the pretty mommy who only seems to have it all, and rather deftly gives it some depth. New Zealand's Urzila Carlson plays a wildly inappropriate guidance counselor named Fallon; it’s the kind of role you’ve seen a little too often, but Carlson works it well. “The results are in,” she tells a student. “You’re stupid.”

It’s also nice to see Forte play a leading man, and he pairs well with Schumer. Their meet-cute in a coffee shop has charm, and they later stage an amusingly tortuous sex scene that avoids any detection of Lainy’s fake bump.

Written by Schumer with Julia Paiva (who gets credit for the story), and directed by Tyler Spindel, “Kinda Pregnant” owes a great debt to Judd Apatow’s classic R-rated comedies and perhaps to the influence of Adam Sandler, whose Happy Madison company produced it. The movie has a slightly under-budgeted feel (save for a bang-up finale just before the closing credits) and its commentary may not be the sharpest. But if you’re in the mood for a breezy little comedy about one of life’s most disruptive events, “Kinda Pregnant” delivers.

BOTTOM LINE Schumer makes a welcome return in an entertaining riff on the tribulations of pregnancy.