Anders Holm (John) and Cobie Smulders (Samantha Abbot) in a scene from Unexpected.
Movies with single adjectives for titles usually signal something scary (Insidious, Sinister) or a fairy tale (Tangled, Frozen). Kris Swanberg's drama, Unexpected, has some elements of each: It's about the scary miracle of pregnancy.
The story follows a thirtyish Chicago high school science teacher, Samantha (Cobie Smulders), who discovers she's pregnant, which sends her into an anxious spin about her change in identity from professional to expectant mother.
Swanberg, director of two previous films and the spouse of prolific mumblecore director Joe Swanberg (Drinking Buddies, Hannah Takes the Stairs), based the story on her own experiences as a teacher. The episodic script, co-written with Megan Mercier, ticks off a lot of familiar boxes: Samantha's mood swings, career panic and renegotiated relationship with her partner and her own mother.
All of this is presented with the artless directness of a flowchart, but goes over easily. Smulders, the Vancouver actress best known for her work on the sitcom How I Met Your Mother and as Maria Hill in the various Avengers movies, offers a warm, natural performance.
The woolly sweater vibe extends to Sam's easygoing boyfriend, John (Anders Holm), who gets only a tiny bit too controlling after their quick civil wedding. As Sam's disappointed middle-class mother, Elizabeth McGovern is just proper enough to be annoying, but you sense she'll come around.
The movie becomes a little more provocative when Samantha starts channeling her anxiety into an overbearing concern for one of her students, a radiant young African-American teen named Jasmine (Gail Bean), who is also pregnant. The rest of this short (85-minute) film plays out like a light satire of the patronizing Nice White Lady films.
The term, which comes from a Mad TV sketch, refers to inspirational movies, from Dangerous Minds to The Help, about pretty white women, usually teachers, who inspire and help their underprivileged friends or students to be more like them.
While Unexpected touches on liberal do-gooder excesses, only occasionally does Swanberg allow the film to slide in the discomfort zone. There's an unnerving early moment, when you can tell by Samantha's facial reaction that she assumes Jasmine, unlike Sam, will have an abortion rather than risk her educational chances. But Samantha quickly recovers and starts planning Jasmine's life. She takes the girl to prenatal yoga class, snaps at Jasmine's junk-food habit and takes her on a scouting mission to her own alma mater.
In her zeal, Samantha screws up, and Jasmine, who may be better equipped for motherhood than Sam, confronts her teacher on her privileged assumptions.
If there's anything unexpected about Unexpected, it's that none of this is actually consequential, even to the two women's friendship. The movie touches on some sensitive spots about race, class and pregnancy choice, but backs away from conclusions. The teacher gets schooled, but the impact feels no more than anecdotal.