It's Complicated (Monday, December 28, 2009) (211)

Recently an ad hoc committee of Hollywood executives and journalists met in a boardroom in the San Fernando Valley to name a filmmaker who would make movies for and about middle-aged women. Many people were nominated - Diane English, Penny Marshall and Nora Ephron all received a ton of votes, but they all lost to Nancy Meyers. She was named the writer director of films with women, for women, about women. Period.

What we get in It's Complicated is a totally easy movie that might speak to some sadness in the middle-aged American woman, but really is just silly and forgettable. In it, Meryl Streep (Omigod - it's Meryl Streep - I hope she gets another Golden Globe or Oscar - she's so wonderful!! gag) plays a woman who has been divorced for 10 years from her ex-husband, Alec Baldwin. They have three kids and their oldest daughter has a fiance, John Krasinski. When she starts to renovate her already-enormous Santa Barbara house, she meets Steve Martin, who is an architect. They two have some immediate chemistry. At the same time, Baldwin, upset in his own new marriage to a woman half his age, tries to re-seduce Streep all over again. She then has to choose between a return of her old husband or a chance at new gray-haired love.

The story itself is pretty banal. It is easy and doesn't really stretch too far - which it shouldn't for such a rom com. The writing is OK - not too dull but never especially funny. Most of the laugh-lines come from Baldwin who seems to be playing up his Jack Donaghy character from 30-Rock more than anything Meyers gives him (hey - it got him this gig, so why mess with it!).

Despite the requisite Golden Globe nomination for Streep (c'mon, Hollywood Foreign Press, you really think this is one of the best female comedic roles of the year?!), it is Martin who really deserves credit for his acting here. He is a fantastic, rather pathetic straight-man here with very little of his typical zaniness. He is one of the few people we can identify with and probably the most normal of everyone onscreen.

There are a lot of curious things about the story and the script. It makes no sense to me why it should be set in Santa Barbara and not Los Angeles. I'm sure there are some families who live there, but it makes no sense that Streep's oldest daughter and her fiance would move in down the street from mom. I don't think there are any single couples under 50 who live in Santa Barbara. The Streep/Baldwins (known in the film as Jane and Jack Adler) are among the richest and the whitest people on earth with their Porsches and their fancy coffee shops. Way to make the story relateable, Nance! (OK - this is petty of me - but I couldn't help feel the whole time that rich people like this deserve no sympathy. Set the movie in Los Angeles, at least).

I would imagine that Jack and Jane Adler would be Jewish (it's a hell of a Jewish-sounding name), but there is no sense they're religious at all (ok - fine) and they have three of the blondest, WASPyest kids in the world. Streep is looking to expand her kitchen so she can finally get her 'dream kitchen', but the kitchen that exists in her house seems gigantic already. In this case either find a location with a smaller kitchen to shoot in or scrap the line about wanting a bigger one. This only leads to me disliking Streep more than I already do. Finally, why is John Krasinski written in as the fiance and not the son? In what family is the fiance the most vocal of all the kids? Why wasn't he the son and the daughter his fiancee? Whatever - there are so many problems here.

I'm also sick of the fascination Hollywood has with white women who lunch and drink together? It's such a dumb cliche and was totally played out this year. Julie & Julia, The Blind Side and this all have totally interchangeable luncheon scenes where the protagonist is rational and her friends are either rude, out-of-touch, racist or just silly talking about sex. I guess I've never been a woman at a lunch, so I don't know what they're like - but these are all so tepid and predictable that I hope real women don't talk like this (what a terrible life that would be).

There is nothing entirely loathsome about this film. It comes to a nice, rational conclusion and ties up in a very adult way, if totally trite and neat. It is nice to see a story where a man is pursuing a woman who doesn't totally need him. It makes the woman less desperate and more sensible.

I think the fact that the film is getting attention as a *comedy for smart women* is dumb. It's a movie and it's about a woman, but there is no reason to think it says something that other films don't. I don't know why women who like movies shouldn't expect a smart drama or a smart comedy that doesn't try to pigeon-hole their lives into some sort of type... but then I guess Nancy Meyers gets to write the rules on what is acceptable film fare for women. We just have to sit back and watch.

Stars: 2 of 4