In the movie “35 and Ticking”, four friends are trying to find their way to the lives they promised they would get by age 45. The friends have always dreamed of their “perfect family” , being married, with children. Cleavon is single, and he “works” for the sperm bank, and isn’t worried about finding love, that is until he sees a woman who is brought to his best friend, Zenobia’s birthday party. It ends up being love at first sight. After the first time meeting his new love Cleavon realizes he did not get her number, and tries searching for her all over town.
Onced he finds her, he has trouble trying to express his feelings for her, and his friends Zenobia and Phil help give him tips and topics to talk about to get his love. As Cleavon works to get his woman, his friends Zenobia, Phil and Victoria work on their love lives. Victoria is married to a man who is a hard worker, and he is a good husband. the only thing she feels like she is missing is a child. Victoria is the type of lover who is always getting an intense, sexual arousal from her husband. They constantly have sex, and she is always dressing sexy and trying to “seduce” him.
Throughout their marriage, Victoria brings up the idea of having children, which her husband is not ready for and she eventually drives him away. Later on Victoria is shopping at the mall and sees her ex, and wants to say hello, but she soon sees that he is with a woman who is indeed very pregnant. She ends up not speaking to her ex and moving on with her life, trying to find herself as well as helping her friend, Zenobia with her love life. Zenobia goes on several dates in which she tries to find someone to start a family with and ends up going on a date with a man who she finds on the internet.
At first she is not sure if she wants to go through with the date, but remembers how her friends were telling her that she was too picky. Zenobia goes on a date where she ends up with a 40 year old man who takes her to a house party and a fight breaks out. After that date Zenobia then starts to slow her love life down and continues to be there for her friends. Phil is married to a woman who does not want to be a mother, or a wife. She wants to be single and party without being bothered by her husband and kids.
Eventually, she ends up leaving Phil for a basketball player, who shes attracted to because of his money and fame. Phil is left with the two kids, not knowing how he is going to be able to continue to work and care for them. Zenobia and Cleavon end up coming to help Phil, and he and Zenobia end up spending more and more time together. Over time the movie shows Phil and Zenobia end up getting married and pregnant with their first child together, showing their “storge” love, going from being best friends to going into a romantic, intimate relationship.
Phil’s wife tries to come back, and wants to be a mother and a wife, but it is too late, her children get attached to Zenobia and begin calling her “mommy. ” In the end, Zenobia and Phil are married with their children, Cleavon gets married to the woman he looked all over the city for, and Victoria ends up getting her own child. Although not everyone got the “perfect family” they hoped for, they all end up happy with their own type of family.
