In Amy Schumer’s new Netflix comedy Kinda Pregnant, she plays a woman who’s jealous of her best friend’s pregnancy — so she decides to wear a fake baby bump of her own.
Unfortunately, that’s also sort of a metaphor for this terrible excuse of an original film from the streaming giant, which likewise dresses itself in the knockoff humor of better comedies. The movie’s stereotypical story, awful writing, cringe acting, and general predictability throughout left me shaking my head in disbelief that I fell for yet another Netflix original film (where are all those supposed “gourmet cheeseburgers,” anyway?), which also managed to rack up laughably bad critics’ and audience scores on Rotten Tomatoes in the low 20s.
It’s also plain as day how Kinda Pregnant got to be the most-watched Netflix movie in the world this week. I strongly suspect viewers saw Schumer on the thumbnail, clicked play, and then regretted it at some point down the line. Like this viewer who opined on X: “Kinda pregnant is the worst film I’ve ever watched in my entire life,” which then got a like-minded reply — “I literally came on Twitter just now to find people that hate this movie as much as I am currently. I’m only half an hour in. It’s SO BAD and I am NOT a Schumer-hater!”
The film comes from The Out-Laws director Tyler Spindel, and it was written by Schumer and Julie Paiva. Per Netflix’s summary, “The new Happy Madison-produced comedy stars Amy Schumer as Lainy, a woman who, feeling left behind when her best friend since childhood becomes pregnant, straps herself with a fake bump of her own. One ball pit, substitute turkey belly, and ill-fated gender-reveal piñata later, Lainy might not have a cuddly newborn, but she’s gained a cadre of messy and loyal women — as well as an adorable Zamboni-driving love interest, played by the ever sweet-and-silly Will Forte (Bodkin).”
Sigh. Netflix has, for whatever reason, chosen to master the art of quantity over quality when it comes to original movies. For every The Irishman or Glass Onion, we get a dozen Kinda Pregnant-level flops — cheap, lazy, and somehow both overproduced and underwritten. It’s as if Netflix greenlights projects based on a dartboard covered in half-baked scripts, then throws millions of dollars at them without a second thought.
The problem? Netflix doesn’t need movies to be great art — just watchable enough to keep people from canceling their subscriptions. They pump out films like an AI trained on the phrase “mediocre but trending,” banking on big names and clickbait premises rather than solid storytelling. And let’s be real: When was the last time you heard someone say, “Wow, that Netflix original movie was amazing!” without immediately following it up with, “Well … for a Netflix movie”?
It’s all about engagement, not excellence. Doomscrolling, but for movies. And we keep falling for it, clicking play because, hey, it’s right there. This can’t go on forever, right?
