Amy Schumer succumbs to streaming-comedy pastiche in the fittingly ambivalent Kinda Pregnant
This fake-pregnancy comedy is "kinda" lots of things, but not especially good.
Photo: Netflix
It’s not Amy Schumer’s fault, what’s happened to mainstream comedies in the ten years since Trainwreck became one of the last such movies to cross over into summer-blockbuster-level success. But given when she emerged as a comic star, there may not be a better case study. In 2015, Schumer’s first big-screen vehicle existed on a continuum that included movies like Bridesmaids and The Big Sick—conversational, relatable, often Judd Apatow-related comedies dealing with the untidiness of adult relationships. In 2025, Schumer’s streaming comedy Kinda Pregnant is, true to its cutely noncommittal title, a hodgepodge of comedy styles and, in some cases, highly specific bits and pieces from other movies. It’s kinda Happy Madison, the Adam Sandler production company that made it, with its psychology-explaining childhood flashback, labels-out product placement, and faux-underdog lead character who’s constantly annoyed and put upon by the garish weirdos that surround her. It’s kinda Bridesmaids, with multiple distressed female friendships and New Zealand comic Urzila Carlson obviously earmarked for Rebel Wilson-style scene-stealing. It’s kinda Trainwreck again, with Will Forte subbing in for his SNL co-star Bill Hader to play Schumer’s love interest. And it’s kinda Labor Pains, a barely-released Lindsay Lohan comedy from 2009 where the heroine fakes a pregnancy with presumably zany results.
The idea of faking a pregnancy for attention sounds so much like an Inside Amy Schumer sketch that I’m not 100% certain it wasn’t one. But while Lainy (Schumer) enjoys the compliments from strangers and the repeated offerings of New York City subway seating, she doesn’t construct her big lie with real avarice—perhaps the first sign that Schumer, who co-wrote the screenplay, has sacrificed the satirical sensibility of her sketch show for something more superficially likable. See, Lainy is genuinely despondent over the recent bust-up of a four-year relationship she was hoping would lead to marriage and kids—and the fact that her best friend Kate (Jillian Bell) is both married and pregnant, seemingly leaving Lainy behind. So after donning a fake pregnancy belly at a maternity shop just to see what she would look like, Lainy decides on a whim to attend a prenatal yoga class. There she meets Megan (Brianne Howey), a no-nonsense woman expecting her second child and always down to talk about the less picture-perfect aspects of child-bearing. Extending her new friendship with Megan—and her flirtation with Megan’s brother Josh (Will Forte)—requires Lainy to extend her deception.