Film Reviews
It's Complicated (2009)
This is a movie that requires you to lower your cinematic standards and to accept it for what it is — a fluffy romantic comedy built around four name plate actors and targeted at aging boomers. Jane (Meryl Streep) has been divorced for ten years after twenty years of marriage to Jake (Alec Baldwin). Her three young adult kids and future son-in-law Harley (John Krasinski) no longer live at home, and that makes for an awfully quiet and lonely house at night. But she does look forward to a major remodel of her hacienda in the hills of Santa Barbara, thanks to the capable architect Adam (Steve Martin). Problems arise when Jake falls back in love with Jane and initiates an affair with her, despite having remarried a trophy wife with a tattoo and a five-year old. Jane has mixed feelings, especially because she and architect Adam have a thing going. Parts of the script are horrendous, and at times Streep huffs around her garden and kitchen like Martha Stewart, but there are also poignant moments and good laughs about the mysteries of aging love. It's complicated, right?