Browse: Home / UNEXPECTED

Menu

Skip to content
  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login

The-SoluteLogo

A Film Site By Lovers of Film

Menu

Skip to content
  • Features
  • Reviews
  • Long Reviews
  • News
  • Articles and Opinions
  • Other Media
  • The Friday Article Roundup: Writer's Blocks
  • Lunch Links: MOOMIN
  • Film on the Internet: BASKET CASE
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray
  • Taco Break: Overplayed But Still Funny

UNEXPECTED

Posted By Julius Kassendorf on July 22, 2015 in Uncategorized | 20 Responses

Unexpected is a movie made by women about women for women. Actually, I should restate that. Unexpected is a movie made by a white woman about a white woman for white women. Right now, movies have a problem with multi-culturalism. There is a glut of movies in the past decade that all focus on a main character that deny all other characters the right to live outside of that main character’s story. If we as a society feel its right to call out Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl for scuttling off all its side characters to focus on the white male character, and Dope for doing the same to its black male character, then I am pretty much OK with calling out Unexpected for being about a white chick trying to save a black girl and scuttling that girl’s life to the side of the movie to the point where she’s a prop for that white chick.

Kris Swanberg’s third feature stars Cobie Smulders as Samantha Abbott, a white teacher in a very clean high school in the middle of south Chicago. Samantha and her long-term live-in boyfriend, who live in some Chicago suburban-esque neighborhood, suddenly find themselves pregnant and Samantha has to find her way through this unexpected pregnancy. Instead of dealing with it like a normal human being, she finds help and companionship through Jasmine, a black girl from the ghetto who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant.

Samantha uses Jasmine as her emotional crutch, even though she and the movie barely recognize Jasmine as a person. She takes Jasmine to a bunch of upper-middle-class pregnancy things, e.g. prenatal yoga, and pushing her into a 4 year university without ever listening to Jasmine’s actual desires and needs. Samantha is a rich white woman pushing her rich white woman ways onto a poor black student, regardless of cultural differences. By the time Unexpected lumbers to its predictable conclusion, any charaterization of Jasmine’s life outside Samantha is too little too late. Besides, Samantha’s biggest punishment for her transgressions is a stern talking to and a cold shoulder (Oh no!!!).

That’s the biggest problem with Unexpected: there are no real stakes. If Samantha fails at being a good surrogate mother to Jasmine (who also has a real mother who seems to pay attention to her), nobody suffers. If Jasmine fails to get into her first choice university, there’s a second choice waiting to back her up. This lack of stakes would make a slightly delightful film if it weren’t so racist. Occasionally, characters will throw off asides about students dropping out or dying, but they provide about as much weight to the story as the branding of the yoga studio.

Much like Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl, everybody except the main character is othered and reduced to mere plot points. Unlike Me, Earl, and the Dying Girl, Unexpected doesn’t even hint that there could be a problem with this world view. Unexpected seems to think it’s being progressive by subverting the Dangerous Minds-style “middle-class white woman saves an inner city student” plot. However, its idea of subversion is to ignore the differences between middle-class people and lower-class people. Instead of subverting the familiar formula, Swanberg made it exponentially worse. Unexpected is an unabashedly self-centered egotistical solipsistic work that calls attention to itself as a progressive work about class, women and minorities, but is actually concerned with the barely-existent plight of gainfully-employed middle-class white people.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged Comedy, female director, Kris Swanberg, Unexpected

About the Author

Julius Kassendorf

Julius Kassendorf is the founder of The-Solute, and previously founded The Other FIlms and Project Runaways in 2013. There, he dabbled in form within reviews to better textualize thought processes about the medium of film.

Previously, he has blogged at other, now-defunct, websites that you probably haven’t heard of, and had a boyfriend in Canada for many years. Julius resides in Seattle, where he enjoys the full life of the Seattle Film Community.

Julius’ commanding rule about film: Don’t Be Common. He believes the worst thing in the world is for a film to be like every other film, with a secondary crime of being a film with little to no ambition.

Related Posts

Taking Over the MADhouse — The Last Days of EC Comics Part 2→

Tax & Order: Special Investigators’ Unit: Caitlin Casiello on A TAXING WOMAN→

Year of the Month: Tom “Vomas” Morton Goes to SUMMER SCHOOL→

Year of the Month: PLANES, TRAINS, AND AUTOMOBILES→

  • Comments
  • Popular
  • Most Recent
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleWonderful piece, Sam. It's made…
  • j*****@yahoo.com'
    mr_apollo on Year of the Month: Mon OncleFellow heretic here. I've never…
  • n***********@gmail.com'
    Ruck Cohlchez on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEI wouldn't have called it…
  • j***********@gmail.com'
    Son of Griff on LIFE ITSELFGlad to hear back from…
  • n*********@gmail.com'
    Jake Gittes on Film on the Internet: AN AMERICAN CRIMEThis is the single most…
  • “The End” of SAVAGES

    33851 views / Posted November 10, 2014
  • What the fuck did I just watch? SPHERE

    27453 views / Posted March 19, 2015
  • The Untalented Mr. Ripley: The Craft of Standup Comedy and the Non-Comedy of TOM MYERS

    25068 views / Posted June 26, 2018
  • Scenic Routes: SHOWGIRLS (1995)

    20096 views / Posted November 20, 2014
  • Yvonne, or: CASABLANCA In One Character and Three Scenes

    11141 views / Posted August 21, 2014
  • Oh, to have the straight line just hovering over your shoulder for when you need it.

    The Friday Article Roundup: Writer’s Blocks

    March 24, 2023 / The Ploughman
  • This was a tough one to find a properly formatted header image for.

    Lunch Links: MOOMIN

    March 23, 2023 / The Ploughman
  • Film on the Internet: BASKET CASE

    March 22, 2023 / ZoeZ
  • New on DVD and Blu-Ray

    March 21, 2023 / Greta Taylor
  • Taco Break: Overplayed But Still Funny

    March 20, 2023 / Tristan "Drunk Napoleon" Nankervis

Last Tweets

  • The Friday Article Roundup: Writer’s Blocks - https://t.co/3a4Sy0roVA, 10 hours ago
  • The witty and bittersweet short film MOOMIN doesn't require a smartphone to watch, but it helps. https://t.co/gMMYZWtxgb, Mar 23
  • Film on the Internet: BASKET CASE - https://t.co/ncsoMwqyRT, Mar 22

©2014 - 2016 The-Solute | Hosted, Developed and Maintained by Bellingham WP LogoBellinghamWP.com.

Menu

  • Home
  • Who We Are
  • About
  • Privacy
  • Contact Us
  • Login
Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!