I admit that I loved the movie The Back Up Plan. I bought it after I saw it through Netflix, and have watched it about once a week. Okay, I have a crush on Alex O, but I also loved his character Stan. (WARNING! SPOILERS ABOUND!)
Stan is a goat farmer in New York, and he and Zoe meet after she’s been inseminated at a doctor’s office. Her biological clock is ticking and she thinks this is the only way she can have a baby. She did not expect to meet the hunky farmer in a cab, or encounter him at a farmer’s market, just as he did not expect to fall for pretty, independent Zoe, only to find out she’s pregnant.
He reacts badly at first, but she DID tell him after they’d made love. Still, he decides he likes her enough to give it a go, and accompanies her to the doctor, where they learn she’s pregnant with twins. He flips out, because he was just getting used to the idea of them as a couple, and he goes for a walk.
My favorite (okay, second favorite—the birthing scene toward the end of the movie cracks me up) scene in the movie is when he returns to Zoe with a bag from her favorite hot dog place and says, “Here we go.” He’s in, because he loves her.
From there on, he’s dedicated to being there for Zoe and her babies, putting up with her midnight cravings and her pregnancy pillow and her mood shifts. When they fight and she tells him to leave, he chides her, saying, “You know I hate that.” Because while he’s dedicated to staying, she’s waiting for him to leave, as her dad did.
He’s so dedicated that he has a middle-of-the-night freak-out over how much everything is going to cost, because he’s determined to be there for the babies. (I can so relate to those freak-outs, though I never got up to make breakfast.) To me, this shows his long-term commitment to her, but she doesn’t see it.
His one failing, though, is when she pushed him away, he went. I’d like to believe he’d come back to her, but she’s the one who had to show growth, so I see it was necessary. But…it dimmed my love of this movie just a bit.
But seriously, you have to watch this movie just for the birthing scene (and not J Lo’s). Just watching her reaction had me rolling.
MJ Fredrick 
MicheleKS
Mar 08, 2011 @ 07:52:28
The ending was a slight bit of a twist on the typical rom-com where the guy runs madly back to the heroine so I actually liked it. And I loved Stan- not many guys are willing to take on a ready-made family. Finally, Alex’s shirt came off in that movie, more than enough reason to watch. To me, Stan was more of a slow-and-steady type, not a type of hero you see too often.
Natalie J. Damschroder
Mar 08, 2011 @ 16:28:27
I didn’t read this post because I haven’t seen the movie yet. 🙂 I bumped it up the queue and it arrives tomorrow, though!
Natalie J. Damschroder
Mar 10, 2011 @ 07:49:57
Okay, I watched it last night! And I really liked the atypical-ness of it. Stan wasn’t suave and smooth and perfect. He did walk away when he first heard “twins” (to think, at least, not just leaving her), and came back. So it was better that she was the one who went back at the end, IMO.
My favorite part was the “there’s the door”/”I hate it when you do that” scene. He was always in it for the long haul, no matter how hard it got.