Hello all!  I haven't been doing much writing lately because there weren't any movies the Lord was drawing my attention to.  Also, I have been experiencing a very busy season in my life where the Lord is causing a major shakeup and transition to another area of ministry.  It was nice to find a movie that was just fun to watch.

Perhaps the main reason I went to see this movie was to see the comedic teaming of Steve Carell and Tina Fey.  I really expected the movie to make me laugh out loud, and it did but not as much as I would have liked.  The premise is a couple, Phil and Claire Foster, who are both hard-working parents trying to make a living and who also have two young children which adds to their stress and fatigue, especially Claire's.  All you moms with young kids could relate as Claire tries very hard to make the "family thing" work.  Even though Phil offers to help more, Claire feels it is her main responsibility to take care of the kids.  One night a week they have "date night" where they try to maintain some semblance of romance in their relationship.  However, even that has become fairly mundane as they always go to the same restaurant and order the same exact things on the menu.

One thing that I found interesting is that over dinner, they look around at other couples and try to re-enact the conversations that those other couples are having with each other.  I found this really kind of cute and actually could be a "prophetic" thing as they try to guess what the story is on each of those couples and they speak in another "voice" and pretend they are "those" people.

Of course, during the course of the movie, Phil and Claire try something different on date night because it turns out one of their friends are headed for divorce.  One night at a fancy restaurant, they find out that there are no tables available and Phil has a spontaneous thought that when another couple's name is called out, he and Claire can get a table by pretending to be them.

I found the movie entertaining because of all the familiar feelings of being in their shoes and also because the movie kind of kicks it up a "notch" by adding all sorts of unfamiliar scenarios with familiar character actors like Mark Wahlberg and James Franco.  I liked the fact that Phil and Claire stick by each other even though they are asked to perform some really outrageous acts of craziness and things totally out of their comfort zone.  I wondered to myself if I could put myself out there like they did if my life or my husband's life was on the line.

I would probably recommend this movie more of you could delete or censor the scenes that maybe "offensive" to you. There is a scene with Phil and Claire doing a "pole dance" (mostly hilarious) and also one time where Phil lets out the "f" bomb.  I actually enjoyed the "outtakes" at the end of the movie the most so it's worth watching the movie just to get to that part if you're a fan of outtakes (and I am).