It's delightful to see Meryl Streep come into her own as a romantic comedian in her later career years--after all the accolades, the Oscars, the serious-as-marble dramatic roles. Streep is in fact a true cutup, as she has demonstrated in films like Mamma Mia and Julie & Julia--and she gets the guy. So if Nancy Meyers's It's Complicated is perhaps a bit facile in the plot department, it's saved by a splendid romp of a performance by Streep (as Jane), along with her two leading men, Alec Baldwin (Jane's ex-husband, Jake) and Steve Martin (her supposed boyfriend, Adam). Meyers, as she did in Something's Gotta Give and Baby Boom, turns notions of over-the-hilldom--at least for women--on their ear. Streep's Jane is a contented, affluent divorcée with excellent taste in furnishings, happily about to preside over an empty nest and feeling just fine about it. Who should bump into, and ruin, this perfect solitude but Jane's ex, Jake, played to a pompous (and hilarious) fare-thee-well by Baldwin. "Turns out I'm a bit of a slut," chirps the sexually awakened Jane. The beauty of It's Complicated is that it really isn't all that complicated--its chemistry depends on the wonderful actors (including the supporting cast of John Krasinski, Lake Bell, Mary Kay Place, and Rita Wilson) and the oft-forgotten reality that people over 25 can have great sex, and fall head over heels. --A.T. Hurley
Stills from It's Complicated (Click for larger image) |
