Unexpected (2023)

2 Stars (out of 4)

Second Nurture

By Jeffrey M. Anderson

Despite its likable performances, this comedy-drama ultimately disappoints, feeling irreparably split between its comedy sequences — which never hit quite right — and its overwrought drama sequences.

Amy (Anna Camp) and Bob (Joseph Mazzello) have been unable to have a baby, and Bob is stuck in his job as a music critic. So, needing a change, they buy a fixer-upper country house and adopt a pet rabbit. That leads to a selection of ducks and turkeys as well, but these pets still cannot fill the void that Amy is feeling.

They hire a handyman, Rupert (Neil Flynn), whose ne'er-do-well son Gerard (Nash Grier) is dating a girl named Shirlee (Ryann Shane). When Shirlee becomes pregnant, Amy gets the idea to adopt the baby, but Bob — who has begun going to therapy and taking Zoloft — doesn't like the idea. During a therapy session, Bob has a breakthrough and begins to eagerly await fatherhood. Unfortunately, life has other plans.

Some of the humor in Unexpected feels like it ought to have hit big, including Bob's odd and varying therapy sessions, his brief foray into reviewing "World Music," Amy binging on fruit, a sequence involving pot-loaded cookies, and a rabbit's path of destruction, but it all lands soft, with nary a chuckle.

On the other hand, the tricky material involving the main couple's not being able to have kids, and their arguments over adoption, wobble between hysterical (Anna Camp gets to scream many, many times here) and uncomfortable, without being especially revealing.

Camp is bright and plucky, even while going off the deep end, and Mazzello is a sweet, misfit everyman, but Neil Flynn comes the closest to getting laughs with the wry, grumpy persona he developed in Scrubs, but Unexpected even manages to smooth that edge.