Accidental pregnancy due to an inebriated one night stand may not be typical comedy fodder, but director Judd Apatow of Forty Year Old Virgin fame takes this potentially tricky premise and turns it into a rather endearing comedy.

The characters follow a rather standard formula of successful but unfulfilled hot girl (Katherine Heigl) meets down and out stoned slacker (Seth Rogan), and has it off with him in a moment of unfeasible passion. This incident leads to a darkly comic scene involving ten positive pregnancy tests; and presto, she is calling up her blast from the past via his dubious pornographic website Celebrity Skin Flicks, to tell him the happy news. After some deliberation these polar opposites decide to try and make it work for the sake of the baby to be, and the results prove rather clich�d and contrived. Apatow manages to instil sense of realism into their relationship by fleshing them out with pithy witticisms and great one liners, but the true talent lies in the supporting cast, who really carry the film through.

The complex relationship of Heigl�s sister (Leslie Mann) and husband is both poignant and gut bustingly hilarious simultaneously, with their love hate relationship becoming a focal point of the film. The gags about married life hit ever so close to home, with the hen pecked husband bitterly remarking that �marriage is like Everybody Loves Raymond but it doesn't last twenty minutes, it lasts forever�. However the sub players can only carry a movie of this length to such an extent and there are moments where the interplay becomes rather fatuous and protracted; as there are only so many pregnancy gags you can make whilst still in the first trimester.

Knocked Up contains some scenes which place it above standard rom-com fare, such as the graphic incident of baby crowning, or Rogan proposing with an empty box, that cause one to view the genre of comedy in a new light. Not quite a standing ovulation but it definitely deserves a pregnant pause for the intense relations and scenes of touching affection that are witnessed.