Amy Schumer can’t conceive fresh comedy in Netflix’s ‘Kinda Pregnant‘

A talented supporting cast don’t cover the tired tropes and lazy direction of Netlfix’s latest comedy Kinda Pregnant.

In light of David Lynch’s recent passing and the unrealized potential of his final work due to the greedy calculation of its higher management, I have grown more weary of Netflix’s accounting in the year 2025. I’m not saying everything from their streaming brand should be a masterwork. But when there’s a movie like Kinda Pregnant, a lazy, dull, underwritten comedy centered around Amy Schumer, I’m less willing than ever to give it the benefit of the doubt. Everyone here can do better — and should.

Ever since Lainy (Schumer) was a child, she has aspired for motherhood. Now in her forties and unable to keep a steady relationship, the school teacher worries that such a dream might not become a reality. And when her best friend, Kate (Jillian Bell), announces that she’s expecting, Lainy can’t help but harbor envy. Discovering that she can receive the societal benefits of pregnancy without the downsides, Lainy starts wearing a fake baby bump. But it doesn’t take long for Lainy’s lies to pile up rapidly, particularly when she forms a quick friendship with an affluent mom named Megan (Brianne Howey) and burgeons a romantic partnership with Megan’s brother, Josh (Will Forte). 

Nepo baby negatives.

Kinda Pregnant has a slight, but promising premise that the main players constantly undermine. Namely the underdeveloped direction by Tyler Spindel (The Out-Laws), who continues to squander any chance he gets. Nepotism has become a dirty and perhaps tediously overused buzzword these days, but I can’t help but feel like Spindel’s filmmaking career owes more to his familial connections (he’s Adam Sandler’s nephew) than it does to any merits of his own. I’ve only seen one other film of his — another dire Netflix romp, The Wrong Missy — but it’s apparent that he isn’t an actors’ director.

Spindel gives the cast way too much reign and too little composure, resulting in too many talented stars flaying and ambling about, with scenes dolling out in painfully tedious fashion. A constant stench of desperation lingers in every sequence, with many actors overextending themselves to do whatever it takes to garner a laugh. It makes for awkward, lumbering comedy, not to mention lackluster filmmaking. And it doesn’t help that, for a project that seems well-tailored to Schumer, the actress seems adrift by a film that, despite her writing credit, appears beneath her potential. 

While the movie’s hard-R rating prevents Kinda Pregnant from stagnating like previous Schumer letdowns (I Feel Pretty, Unfrosted), there’s still a nagging tonal imbalance. Kinda Pregnant’s vulgar, coarsely vaginal humor doesn’t settle nicely into the film’s more modest appeals. Characters will switch attitudes on a dime, never allowing the movie to settle in a right style of comedy.

Whenever it aims for dramatic nuances, Kinda Pregnant will freeze to a halt in such an aggressive way that it makes the unwieldy humor more starkly off. It’s frustrating for many reasons, particularly because Schumer has often proven that she can find the delicate or raunchy humor in everyday interactions. This Happy Madison approach makes Kinda Pregnant becomes a total slog with its annoying, painful, highly embarrassing comedy. The aimless flailing proved by Spindel’s poor direction only serves to highlight Schumer’s exasperating weaknesses as a movie star.

Schumer slips up.

Following the success of Trainwreck and Comedy Central’s Inside Amy Schumer, one would hope that Schumer could forge a ripe, ribald career for herself. But in the past decade, give or take the occasional high point like her strong dramatic turn in A24’s The Humans, Schumer has made a habit of disappointing with her films. Snatched, I Feel Pretty, and Unfrosted were all letdowns to various degrees. Schumer wields her pen to any project she’s working on, so her writing credit on Kinda Pregnant suggests a keen return to her earlier triumphs. Alas, Kinda Pregnant may ultimately be her weakest effort to date.

Despite these failures, Schumer has some strong performers who provide a sense of dignity to the proceedings that are highly, highly needed. Forte often proves to be a salve here with his gentle, agreeable screen presence that never gets thrown off by the sweaty efforts of its director and star. Likewise, Howey and Bell are likable and winning in their own right, and their grounded performances help to highlight the absurdity of some sequences, resulting in the movie’s few and far-between giggles. They are also the ones who, perhaps due to Schumer’s unrestrained talents as a writer, have a couple of winning dramatic beats, where their characters can voice out their frustrations about the burdens of pregnancy that all too often get overlooked in the big picture. These little, but impactful, moments ultimately go a long way. 

The bottom line.

And it’s thanks to their fine efforts that Kinda Pregnant doesn’t fall quite as deeply into the pits of horribleness that are promised in the film’s egregiously awful first half. For whatever hackneyed efforts are made to win over the audience with its overly boisterous comedy, it’s ultimately in the quieter, more subdued moments that this Schumer vehicle shines ever so infrequently. Indeed, it was in the unvarnished ugly truths and warm, unblemished laughs of womanhood that Schumer made a name for herself. Perhaps in the years to follow, she’ll return to those ample waters. For it won’t be from the likes of dire efforts like Kinda Pregnant that Schumer or Netflix will succeed.

Kinda Pregnant is now streaming on Netflix. Watch the trailer here.

Images courtesy of Netflix. Read more reviews by Will Ashton here.