MOVIE REVIEW: IT’S COMPLICATED

IT’S COMPLICATED

Five of Seven Cows

I have secretly loved Meryl Streep for most of my adult life. I’ve never told her but I’m sure she knows. I think my first attack of smitteness was when I saw her in Postcards From the Edge. She was like my older sister’s cool friend – impossibly hip and pretty and witty and doomed – and I’ve loved her from afar ever since. It’s a bad habit of mine, loving what I can’t have; one I’m still trying to shake. So, I say all that to say just how freaky it is watching her age. That I’m just one car behind her on the aging train doesn’t help, but there it is.

She’s in a new movie, by the way. Perhaps I should mention that.

It’s Complicated is not a major effort. It’s a light, breezy sort of comedy with some big names and a plot that must have been mined before, but not to my memory. Streep plays Jane, who is divorced from Jake (Alec Baldwin), and being courted by Adam (Steve Martin). Except she’s also being courted by Jake, the re-married father of her three children, who are all suitably cute and funny and wealthy and sort of annoying in their wholesomeness.

Perhaps It’s Complicated is not a major effort, but it is funny. Streep is fantastic as usual. Has she ever not been? Rare are the serious actors that have equally excellent dramatic and comedic timing. She is a jewel. I never quite bought Alec Baldwin’s character, though. There simply wasn’t enough weight there, figuratively speaking: In the literal sense there’s plenty. Alec, buddy, keep your shirt on; I’m trying to eat popcorn over here. Steve Martin is predictably excellent, though his is the minor character of the three and a bit too touchy-feely for my taste.

Romantic comedies seldom re-invent the genre, as there’s really no need to. Who among us doesn’t have a romantic history from which a dozen embarrassing plotlines could be pulled? They are typically lightweight affairs and for me reviewing one follows a pretty standard template: State the premise, list the actors, say if it’s funny, then talk about yourself –not necessarily in that order. Mission accomplished.

While the subject matter is largely benign, this is a movie best for adults. There is plenty of implied sex, not to mention Baldwin’s unfortunate semi-nudity. Surely the having-an-affair-with-your-ex thing has been done before. It’s so simple and pregnant with comedic possibility. I give it five cows.