As the group dynamic of six New Yorkers moves beyond friendship to embrace marriage and kids, the long-run loyalty of best buddies Julie (Ms. Westfeldt) and Jason (Adam Scott) remains unbreakable. In their inner circle, Leslie (Maya Rudolph) and Alex (Chris O’Dowd) have left Manhattan to become fertile exiles in the pram-pushing supermarkets of Brooklyn. Missy (Kristen Wiig) and Ben (Jon Hamm), the sexiest couple they know, used to pant with passion for each other and now the pressures of parenting have all but driven them apart. With no partners and no role models to insure emotional freedom, Julie and Jason vow to never fall into the same trap as their once-vibrant pals. They would like to have a baby like everybody else, but they look around them and see nothing but horror. Their friends never enjoy a single meal in peace. Nobody can finish a conversation or a plate of pasta without chasing a shrieking child or changing a disgusting diaper. Avoiding the accompanying traditional stress that is aging their friends prematurely, eschewing the jangled nerves and invasion of privacy that goes with marriage, they promise to escape any hint of the kind of noisy, annoying traditions that might dangerously jeopardize their fondness for each other and wreck their independence. So they decide to skip the marriage and divorce stuff, just have a baby, and raise it together without all the crap that goes with romance and heartbreak—no strings attached. This way, they can avoid compromise and be 100 percent committed “half the time.”

Brainy Julie declares a new motto: “Strategize, focus, prioritize!” While Julie goes on with her career and tests out potential lovers, Jason’s reputation as a serial satyr heads for black-belt status. It all seems perfect, but with all that talk about feces, vomit and exercises for the vagina, it’s no wonder that even a platonic couple’s most carefully laid plans have a way of backfiring when the human heart gets in the way. Unexpectedly, Julie finds the handsomest, most loving husband material in Kurt (Edward Burns), and Jason takes up with a libidinous tattooed Broadway dancer in Chicago named M.J. (Megan Fox). Joining their old friends, all four couples go away on a Vermont ski weekend and all hell breaks loose. From here on, nothing is the same, everyone changes, and the movie becomes best described in the lyrics of a Cole Porter song:

I loved him … but he didn’t love me
I wanted him … but he didn’t want me.
Then the gods had a spree
And indulged in another whim.
Now he loves me … but I don’t love him.

There’s nothing new about the material, but it’s the way Ms. Westfeldt mixes dramatic intensity with effortless naturalism that makes the film so charming. The impressive ensemble is so uniformly tuned in to the director’s goals that you really get the feeling these people have known each other for years. It’s especially exciting to see Jon Hamm (Ms. Westfeldt’s offscreen squeeze and the star of Mad Men) work beyond his impossible matinee-idol looks to probe beneath the skin of an 8x10 glossy who bought the American dream and found a hole in it. The predictable relationship elements that drag down the final 20 minutes are not up to the brisk pacing of the rest of the film, but even though Friends With Kids is not a movie everyone will identify with, it fills 107 minutes with enough visual popcorn to keep you satisfied.

rreed@observer.com

FRIENDS WITH KIDS

Running Time 107 minutes

Written and Directed by Jennifer Westfeldt

Starring Jennifer Westfeldt, Adam Scott and Maya Rudolph

Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein (Getty Images)

First, a little bit of back story: The night before The Observer was to go to the screening party for the sequel season of Portlandia, the IFC comedy show starring Saturday Night Live fixture Fred Armisen and Sleater-Kinney's Carrie Brownstein, an Irishman stepped on our lighter in a bar. In exchange for the gaffe, the gentleman offered us a fist-sized piece of homemade organic chocolate truffle, wrapped in decorative foil. How sweet!

As we dashed our way to the Museum of Natural History last night in order to see what could possibly top the catchphrase "Put a Bird On It," we split the giant confection with a fellow famished coworker. Which would have all been fine, if we hadn't made the completely understandable mistake of confusing "chocolate truffles" for "chocolate-covered mushrooms." No, not truffle mushrooms. The other kind. (In hindsight, putting actual truffle mushrooms into chocolate doesn't make any sense either.)

We guess that's why your parents warned you never to take organic candy from strangers. Ooh look, there's Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig! Are those two glowing, or is just the hallucinogens kicking in?

Portlandia as a show works by playing on conventions of hipster culture. While the first season took on broad subjects like eco-freaks, obsessive crafters (Put a ___ on it!), and outraged feminist retailers, the episodes screened for next season were more niche in their targets. Andy Samberg played a cocktail creationist torn between the life of an artisan mixologist and that of a SoCal bartender, while Ms. Wiig's amazing cameo as a feline band's Misery-inspired super-fan reminded us why we never let the Keyboard Cat take creative control of our musical group.

It should be mentioned, our coats just felt really good, sitting in that theater. So soft!

The opening scene in Portlandia's second season tried to recreate its success with the "Put a Bird on It" catchphrase. Unfortunately the new slogan "We can pickle that!" felt like a Mad-Libbing of last season's hit formula instead of fresh material.

Midway through the show, we realized we were sitting so close to Friday Night Lights/American Horror Story's gorgeous and talented Connie Britton that we had to physically restrain ourselves from touching her hair. But we really wanted to? She has great hair. To be fair, we had on our Red Wolf Spirit Hood, which at the time we believed rendered us invisible. Or invincible. (One of the two.) Jeff Goldblum, sitting three feet away, had a really deep purple chakra. Lorne Michael's chakra, visible two rows over, was pewter and had a slight Canadian accent.

After the screening, guests were ushered up to a Portlandia-themed bar room, which featured a lot of colors, pickle jars, anxiety emotions, a giant children's parachute, and a two-to-one celebrity/non-famous person ratio.

While Fred Armisen posed for photos with his mother, we asked if the actor felt like his show resonated as much to the East Coast, Williamsburg audience as it did with Oregonian hipsters. Did he see them as sister cities, or was the location of the show crucial to its humor?

"Portland's got a lot of sister cities," Mr. Armisen replied in his surprising dulcet voice, while behind him the wall began melting distractingly. "Williamsburg, Tokyo, Austin...that culture can be found in so many places now." The pandemic of 20-something liberal arts majors in large cities whose tastes run towards raw foods, hypocritical eco-snobbery, and a fanatic disdain of anything "mainstream" could explain the show success: to date, it's had the highest ratings of any show on the network.

Making our way to the back bar area where the cast and crew of Saturday Night Live were spending the evening, we were in high spirits. We were the spirit god Red Fox! No, you can't touch our hat! It's a hood! It has powers!

We found SNL writer and Law & Order enthusiast John Mulaney chatting with a small group about his love for American Horror Story. His lady friend was clearly a supporter of West Dillon High, with a shirt reading "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose." Ms. Britton herself was nowhere to be found, though we did spot new cast members Vanessa Bayer, Taran Killam, and Paul Brittain all trying to look old enough to drink. We managed to tackle Mr. Killam; telling him how much we loved his recent cameo as a deranged glee teacher on Community, which lead to a short discussion with the actor on the NBC show's brilliance and unfortunate hiatus, before Ms. Bayer rescued him from an evening of chit-chat with an accidentally intoxicated reporter.

"Tell her how much you love her Miley Cyrus impression," a nearby friend elbowed us. Come on, we weren't that stoned.

While Mr. Hader and Ms. Wiig were early arrivals on the scene, looking glamorous, costar Jason Sudeikis showed up around midnight in what appeared to be sweatpants and a backpack. Coming from the gym, perhaps? Kristen Schaal, Seth Meyers, Dave Hill, Heather Lawless, Todd Barry, Kumail Nanjiani, Jack McBrayer, Jon Glaser, and David Cross rounded out the comedic social network. A heated debate between ourselves and our + 1 over the name of that Nicolas Cage film directed by one of the other Coppolas resulted in Mr. Cross leaning in and asking, "Are you having this conversation for my benefit?" (Totally! How did he guess?**)  There may have been some incisive commentary to parse from that exchange, regarding the parallels between celebrity and hipster narcissism, but we didn't feel like chasing the analogy once it took corporeal form as a misshapen bunny and hopped to the exit. We decided to follow our hallucination's pragmatic work-night vibe and put a bird on our evening before last call.

As for our tiny coworker with whom we shared our candy? We hadn't heard from her in the last three hours; as far as we know, she's still camped out somewhere in the museum, living out our childhood fantasy from The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. If she doesn't show up by tomorrow, we'll assume she's decided to live in the museum and off the grid for good. That would just be so Portlandia of her!

**The movie, by the way, was Deadfall.

Zombieland

What’s the story: Think Shaun of the Dead… but with Americans. Blessed with one of the strongest trailers we’ve seen in quite some time—Van Halen! Snooty British voice over!—Zombieland comes into this weekend with tremendous buzz, great reviews and even a little controversy; stay off the blogs unless you want the big celebrity cameo spoiled for you. Woody Harrelson and Jesse Eisenberg star as a pair of mismatched companions trying to survive through life in post-zombie America. Expect buckets of blood, lots of laughs and some major box office. Seriously, there’s no reason why this thing shouldn’t become a huge smash.

Who should see it: Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

Whip It

What’s the story: Be your own hero, indeed. We saw Drew Barrymore’s directorial debut last weekend and can happily report that it is as heavy on charm as it is on temporary tattoos. Whip It finds Ellen Page as the ridiculously named Bliss Cavendar, a Texas high school senior who becomes a roller derby sensation named Babe Ruthless. Along the way she falls in love, makes some friends (hey, Kristin Wiig!) and earns the respect of her domineering-but-well-meaning mother, played by Oscar-winner Marcia Gay Harden. There will certainly be better movies this year than Whip It, but we doubt many will be as much fun.

Who should see it: Diablo Cody.

The Invention of Lying

What’s the story: Another movie we’re dying to see! The Invention of Lying is Ricky Gervais’ latest attempt to become an American movie star—he tried and failed last fall with the wonderful-but-ignored Ghost Town—and this time he’s brought along some major star power in the forms of Jennifer Garner, Jonah Hill, Rob Lowe, Tina Fey and Jason Bateman. While Lying looks absolutely hilarious, what the trailers don’t tell you is that a large amount of the film deals with the existence—or lack thereof—of God. Leave it to Mr. Gervais to stick something so serious inside the workings of a studio comedy.

Who should see it: David Brent.

A Serious Man

What’s the story: Say hello to the first serious (pun!) Oscar contender to open this fall. A Serious Man, the new film from the Coen Brothers, can apparently be filed under comedy of the jet-black variety. A cast of no-names—the most recognizable face is Richard Kind; yep, that Richard Kind—help the Brothers loosely tell the story of Job, but transplanted into 1960s Minnesota. The reviews have been what you’d expect—stellar and reverent, though our Rex Reed was mixed—but we wonder if this film is too small for the Academy to really embrace.

Who should see it: The Dude.

Also opening this weekend: Disney releases Toy Story and Toy Story 2 in 3-D so your kids can see them all over again, while wearing glasses.

Hannah Montana: The Movie

What’s the story: Charlie Kaufman for tweens! See if you can keep all this straight: teen sensation Miley Cyrus stars as Miley Stewart—better known by her stage name, Hannah Montana—who, on the urging of her father, Robby Ray Stewart (played by Miley’s real-life father Billy Ray Cyrus), goes back to her hometown to get some perspective on her topsy-turvy life. Phew! Call us old-fashioned, but we like our teen films to be a tad less meta.

Who should see it: Taylor Swift.

Dragonball Evolution

What’s the story: We can’t say we know a whole lot about Dragonball Evolution, beyond the fact that it’s based on the popular Japanese manga series and has a surprisingly muscular cast (Chow Yun-Fat, Emmy Rossum, James Marsters). According to the film’s Wikipedia page, however, things get rolling when “an evil Namekian warlord named Piccolo descends upon the Earth during a solar eclipse and attempts to decimate the world with the aid of his disciple, Oozaru.” Alrighty, then!

Who should see it: Comic Book Guy.

Observe and Report

What’s the story: If you always wanted to see Seth Rogen commit date rape, then this is the movie for you! Observe and Report has been called everything from “transgressive” to “uproarious” to “amateurish and sloppy” and it just seems like the type of film that people will either love or loathe. We give Mr. Rogen credit for branching out from his usual type, but we can’t say we have a lot of faith in director Jody Hill, he of East Bound and Down fame. Mr. Hill has compared his film to Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, but no matter how many Scorsese classics he name-checks, it still looks like he’s created a more profane version of Paul Blart: Mall Cop.

Who should see it: Rupert Pupkin.