It’s Complicated - Movie Review

By Anne Brodie Dec 25, 2009, 10:00 GMT

A romantic comedy in which two men compete for the affection of a woman. ...more

Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, and Alec Baldwin do their best with ho hum material in this throw back to the 30’s.  It concerns the very rich living in gorgeous homes whining about their love lives.  As in the 30’s, such a privileged cinematic world represents escape from the crushingly bad economic tone of the current times.  So It’s Complicated is both lovely and super annoying.

Streep does Harlequin Lite as Jane, divorced twenty years from Jake (Baldwin) and yet still sensitive to the presence of his hot young wife (Lake Bell) and unable to make a move in her own dating department.  As she tells it, she is happy, used to being alone and beyond romance.  She has her adoring children who although they’re beginning to separate from her and build their own lives, are fiercely protective.

Jake suddenly develops a super charged passion for Jane, sentimentally replaying those golden moments around the family dinner table, Jane’s abilities in the kitchen and bedroom and his idea of fathering a family.  But the irony is that he was never how he remembers it, he and Jane didn’t speak for years, he was distant and did all the bad things.

Even so, Jane if quick to return his advances and they enter into a hot and heavy affair, under the noses of their children and his wife and creepy little step son.  Jane and Jake love it, but it’s clear that Jake is becoming obsessive over their lost marriage because his marriage to the ravishing and rotten new wife is empty. 

Jake is disarmingly frank about his renewed love for Jane, and for a while, she returns it, but they are on separate agendas.  Can they overcome the hurdles?

Enter Adam (Steve Martin) a handsome and newly divorced architect who will build the kitchen extension Jane has always wanted.  He’s smitten by Jane but he’s a bit of a pushover.

John Krasinski, who plays Jane and Jake’s son-in-law to be, absolutely steals the film from Streep and Baldwin.  He has a natural charm and humour that seems to have nothing to do with acting; he plays Harley, who accidentally sees something he shouldn’t and didn’t want to, which makes him a key player.  Later he overhears a conversation and at the perfect moment, does a bit of business that is just enormously winning and funny.  And he keeps doing it; he’s a natural.

Nancy Meyers’ films can be saccharin and feel hollow, as this does.  While it’s good looking and sometimes tasty holiday treat, and performances by Streep, Baldwin, Martin, and Krasinski are winning, it’s little more than tinsel to be taken down in a week or two and stashed away.

It’s the world Meyers creates, more picture perfect than Martha Stewart’s house, with the prettiest palette around, circa the ‘80’s.  Even Jane’s vegetable garden looks as it was put together by Fortnum and Mason working months on end with Findhorn.  It’s somehow maddening to listen to people in this rarefied world complain about their high-toned problems.

35 mm comedy drama
Written and Directed by Nancy Meyers
Opens: December 25th
MPAA: Rated R for some drug content and sexuality
Runtime: ?
Country: USA
Language: English