It's Complicated

It’s Complicated is one of those movies where at the end you feel that it’s all been kind of nice and enjoyable, but then in the pub half an hour later,  you can barely remember what it’s all about. It’s a featherweight concoction full of characters who never seem even vaguely real, but who flit about in a fluffy way making you smile and you generally have a nice time, even if the film doesn’t really amount to much.

Indeed if it weren’t for that fact it stars such talents as Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin, I doubt it would have worked at all. Streep plays Jane, who has only just got over her husband dumping her for a younger woman (Lake Bell) 10 years ago, but is thrown into confusion when she and her ex drunkenly hook up at their son’s graduation. Suddenly the tables are turned and she’s the other woman.

Steve Martin also arrives in her life as an architect hired to build her a new kitchen (this is one of those films set in a world where everybody is fabulously rich and lives in a mansion). He’s smitten with Jane but fearful of starting a relationship, but while she comes to like him, she’s also enjoying the excitement of carrying on a secret affair.

I wished I’d liked the film more, as it’s great to see a Hollywood comedy where most of the main cast are over 50, which tries to channel the sort of sex comedy that was popular in the 1940s and 1950s. However it all comes across as far too flimsy and predictable, with director Nancy Meyers once more dipping into the limited box of tricks she showed in What Women Want, Something’s Gotta Give and The Holiday.

All the characters are very nice and there’s some fun to be had, but it’s all so predictable and contrived that it’s difficult not to feel Meyers has come to rely too much on getting excellent actors to try and make something good out of a very mediocre script. Each and every situation is signposted so you know exactly what going to happen, and there’s a vague feeling with many scenes that you’ve seen them somewhere before (probably because they’ve been lifted straight out of the book ‘Standard Slapstick Set-ups For Romantic Comedies’). Streep, Baldwin and Martin, along with co-stars Lake Bell and John Krasinski (who has some of the funniest scenes) do their best and the result certainly isn’t a disaster, but to be honest, they all deserve to be in a better movie than this.

However in a world where rom-coms are generally awful, it is nice to see one that actually raises a smile now and again. After all, where else will you get to see Meryl Streep acting like she’s stoned?

Overall Verdict: It’s passable enough entertainment, but It’s Complicated is too soft, predictable and unbelievable to be truly great rom-com entertainment. I’m all for more comedies about middle-aged people, but it’d be nice if they were a bit smarter than this.

Reviewer: Phil Caine