The Mayo News

It’s not really that complicated, actually


Cinema
Daniel Carey

MOST film fans know that ‘Raging Bull’ is not about a rampaging animal in Pamplona, or that ‘The Squid And The Whale’ doesn’t feature an unlikely underwater romance. There is no feline in ‘Cat On A Hot Tin Roof’, and you’ll be a while waiting for primates to swing through trees during ‘12 Monkeys’.
So with these misleading titles in mind, the first thing to be said about ‘It’s Complicated’ is that it’s not. Complicated, that is. Written and directed by Nancy Meyers, it tells the story of Jane (Meryl Streep) and Jake (Alec Baldwin), a formerly married couple separated by one letter and ten years of divorce. In New York for their son’s graduation, they get intimately reacquainted, despite the fact that he’s married to the woman he left her for. Got that? Told you it wasn’t that confusing.
As premises for romantic comedies go, an affair with your ex isn’t a bad one. The cast is appealing, and the two leads definitely have chemistry. The evergreen Streep (60 last year) can do no wrong in many people’s eyes, while Baldwin has been reinvigorated by his role in the TV series ‘30 Rock’. Traditionally in Hollywood, sex has stopped at 40, so proof that people of more mature years can have fun between the sheets is no bad thing.
The script isn’t bad either. “You are so lucky Gerry is dead,” Jane tells a widow friend during a girls’ night in. Jake thinks the affair is ‘very French of us’, and asks his suspicious stepson “Do you have x-ray ears?” when a fully-clothed shower becomes the cover for a surreptitious phone call.
John Krasinski (from the US version of ‘The Office’) is in fine form as Harley, the fiancé of Jane and Jake’s eldest daughter. Witnessing a lunchtime tryst between his prospective in-laws, he’s left dropping heavy hints about the information he’s privy to, and gets some of the bigger laughs in a lack-lustre second half.
There are some decent set-pieces too. A doctor is called to a hotel room at lunchtime after the sight of a naked Jane leaves Jake weak at the knees. Jane and Adam (Steve Martin) have a giggle while making chocolate croissants in her restaurant at night.
Downsides? Well, unlike Sinatra’s regrets, there are quite a few. At almost two hours, the flick is far too long given the straightforward plot. Nowhere is the ‘stretched to breaking point’ issue more obvious than in an initially humorous scene where the old folk smoke weed. Problem is, it goes on far too long. And like too many parts of the movie, subtlety is conspicuous by its absence here, even if the sight of Martin behaving like a teenager is mildly diverting.
The adult children of the divorced couple are infantile and periodically annoying, while there aren’t enough sustained laughs to consistently maintain the comedy end of the rom-com bargain. Too often we’re watching the characters doubled over in laughter rather than having something to chuckle about ourselves. This is particularly the case towards the beginning, while there’s a jump-the-shark moment near the end involving nudity and Skype when it all comes out, so to speak.
There a cameo appearance for ‘The Graduate’, which has been introduced to a whole new generation in the last fortnight via Iris Robinson’s affair. It is perhaps unfortunate that an adultery-focused picture called ‘It’s Complicated’ hit our screens in the week that a multi-layered affair has been dominating news bulletins in these islands. Surely that has the makings of a movie?

Rating 2.5 out of 5

---

Share this page