I think that The Amazing Criswell said it best in Edward D. Wood, Jr.’s immortal so-bad-it’s-good epic Plan 9 From Outer Space: “All of us on this Earth know that there is a time to live and a time to die. Yet, death is always a shock to those left behind; it is even more of a shock when Death, the Proud Brother, comes suddenly without warning.” Now, had the main characters in Greg Berlanti’s Life As We Know It bothered watching Ed Wood’s timeless mess-terpiece, they might have known what to expect: something both unexpectable and bad.
We begin with prissy working girl Holly Berenson (Katherine Heigl) going out on a blind date with complete douchebag Eric Messer (Josh Duhamel): a date courtesy of their two bestest friends ever, Mr. & Mrs. Soon-To-Be-Dead-In-A-Bloody-Car-Wreck. The blind date proves disastrous, seeing that neither one of the mostly-unwilling participants has any interest in the other. It doesn’t end there, though, since both parties have the misfortune of seeing each other constantly whilst attending the Soon-To-Be-Dead-In-A-Bloody-Car-Wrecks’ various neighborhood activities — most of which revolve around their newborn baby girl, Sophie (who, for some reason, doesn’t have the same surname as her parents).
Well, just as The Amazing Criswell said, that Proud Brother by the name o' Death comes-a-callin’ — and little Sophie’s mum and dad discover the hard way what it means to have such a long and unnecessarily hyphenated last name. The pairing that Holly and Messer viewed as the world’s most perfect couple have died, proving that age-old adage “Good things happen to bad people.” Or is it “Bad things happen to good people?” No matter, people: the point here is that Holly and Messer’s longtime pals expire in a most unpleasant way. However, before their wrongful termination, the almost-quite-deceased couple extract the most devious method of revenge imaginable on their friends: by willing their baby-thing to them.
Obviously, the Soon-To-Be-Dead-In-A-Bloody-Car-Wrecks hated their friends, Holly and Messer, with a fierce passion. They just didn’t know how to tell them to fuck off in a more polite manner.
So, our odd couple gets the unenviable task of raising their own personal orphaned bastard redheaded stepchild (seriously, the kid’s got red hair!). And, like anyone who's ever reproduced their genetic strand via the sex and unleashed miniature hellish versions of themselves upon the world (like me, ha!), Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel get to experience the joys of raising a child.
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