The new Nancy Meyers' film It's Complicated has a cast headed by Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin. When you have that triumvirate you should have a movie that is special in every sense of the word. It should at least be witty to the extreme, and warm-hearted to boot. These actors are the crème de la crème of Hollywood and Meyers is the director who brought us the charming Something's Got To Give and the heart warming Father of the Bride series. But the plot doesn't quite work, and the stars don't shine as brightly as they should, and... well, it's complicated.
Streep plays Jane, a woman who has been divorced for ten years. She has become adjusted to her single life and is relatively happy. She has almost gotten over the fact her husband Jake cheated on her and left her for a younger woman. Now Jake is married to Agness (Lake Bell) and is miserable. Agnes wants a child of their own and so she is making demands of Jake.
Jane and Jake's son Luke (Hunter Parrish) is graduating from college. She, her two daughters, and her future son in law (John Krasinski) go up for the ceremony. Jake is there too, and during the weekend Jake and Jane get together. Now Jane is "the other woman" in an adulterous relationship. To further complicate things, upon returning home she meets an attractive architect named Adam (Martin) and he starts work on remodeling her house.
Seeing that Adam wants Jane only makes Jake want her more. It finally boils down to Jane having to choose between Jake and Adam and that gets complicated. Very complicated, but not very funny.
For some reason the chemistry in the movie is off. Streep is light and airy but also silly and stupid acting. Baldwin is chunky and charming but also aggravating and irritating. Martin is so bland he almost blends into the woodwork with his white hair and white teeth.
Meyers' direction is heavy handed and charmless. She appears to think audiences will love a cheating couple, but they don't. It is one thing to be cheated on, but another thing altogether when you are the cheater. Jane has no remorse and the audience never totally warms up to her.
The film is rated R for profanity, brief nudity and sexual situations.
It is a treat to see a movie about love and sex concerning people over fifty. But just because they are adult in age does not mean these folks are adult in actions. They act like kids with their hormones in full gear and that is not an appealing sight.
All the ingredients are present in this movie to have a major hit but somehow the participants strike out. "It's Complicated" goes from being a highly anticipated movie to one that leaves a bad taste.
I scored It's Complicated a simple 5 out of 10.
I found Streep to be radiant and a joy to watch and I could see her character struggle with the cheating but also understood that she hadn't felt like a woman in a long time and had given up on that feeling until the man who left her feeling like that suddenly wanted her again. It gave the character a place to take the baby steps needed to launch her back into life.
The biggest payoff of the movie for me was watching the teenage couple in front of us look absolutely shocked when Streep smoked pot... it's nice that someone remembered that we were once the free spirits...