Jon Hamm: 5 Awesome Performances And 5 That Sucked

5 Awesome Performances€

5. Ben - Friends With Kids

An underrated comedy drama from 2011, Hamm nearly gets lost amongst the impressive ensemble cast. Friends With Kids mainly focusses on the dysfunctional, will-they won't-they relationship between Adam Scott and Jennifer Westfeldt, who star alongside Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Chris O'Dowd, and Megan Fox. Hamm is one of the eponymous friends whom Scott and Westfeldt's best pals watch slowly succumb to the pressures of marriage, the laid-back Alex (O'Dowd) and Leslie (Rudolph) having their quiet lifestyle disrupted by toddlers, and the sex-obsessed Ben (Hamm) and Missy (Wiig) becoming all but celibate as soon as there's kids on the scene.

Most of the heavy lifting goes to Scott and Westfeldt as the stars of the piece, but Hamm certainly gets his chance to shine in a couple of scenes. Full disclosure: Jennifer Westfeldt is not only the star, writers and director of Friends With Kids, but also Jon Hamm's partner. Still, she doesn't exactly saddle her beau with a big or even sympathetic part, as he becomes a bit of bitter douchebag who ends up getting a divorce and spending most of his time in a bar. It's a comically tragic role that he pulls off, combining the repressed emotions of Don Draper with the timing of some of his straight comic turns. Speaking of which...

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Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/