Not All That Complicated, Really

It’s Complicated is the newest rom-com claptrap from Nancy Meyer – that delightful woman who brought us The Holiday (which I haven’t seen and have no intention of remedying any time soon) and Something’s Gotta Give (which I have seen. Bill was in it. Or was it Ted? Enough said). Maybe delightful is the wrong word for our dear Nancy. I’ve always pictured her as an amalgamation of the heroines of her films: a sexy older woman, in a pearl necklace, expensive hotel room kind of a way; the kind of older woman whom I’d like to sleep with – that was until I looked her up on IMDb.

The plot of It’s Complicated, considering its title, is surprisingly straightforward. Jake (Baldwin) and Jane (Streep), divorced for a decade, start up an affair. Jake is currently married to the woman who used to be his mistress back when he and Jane were together. Jane feels conflicted, in the sense that she is able to feel two whole emotions at once, and one of them is horny. Things get complicated (I couldn’t resist) when sopping-wet Adam (Steve Martin) arrives and turns on his lukewarm charm.

With our string-bean plot already underway it becomes exceedingly necessary to tie some tinsel onto it, spackle a bit of glitter, and hope that no-one will notice that it’s all for show. Into the mix we throw three adult children, who look conspicuously like cut-outs taken from an Aryan Union advertising campaign; a quirky fiancé for one of the kids; some comic relief, in the form of Jane’s friends; Jake’s current wife; her annoying kid; blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What comes out is a stodgy mess of co-stars, which is surprising, considering the fact that Jane is supposed to be a pastry chef. With limited film time, none of these secondary characters are fleshed-out, and we start to wonder what they’re all doing there in the first place. The gay-looking son should have actually been gay. Keep one other kid, cut the boring one and the fiancé. We can also afford to roll Jane’s three friends into two, and lose the annoying son of Jake’s new wife, whose sole function is as a joke reference point. There - I just saved Universal about a million bucks in actor’s fees.

So, we need to keep Jane, Jake and Adam for the love triangle to work. (Why do writers never experiment with other shapes? Any odd-number-sided shape will do. Love pentagon – ooh, that’s a great title! It could be set it in the Department of Defence headquarters. Military commanders having sexy liaisons with one-another. Not a lot of exterior shots, though. Anyway…) It’s Complicated butt ups against another glaring problem when it comes to the main characters. There’s no hero! Jane is purely reactionary; she just cooks food, feels conflicted and gets wet every time a man accidentally brushes up against her. If she got that horny 20-year-old look out of her eyes for just a moment she might see that the two guys chasing after her are an overweight douche and an arm-flapper with all the personality of a Sayo biscuit. Jake drives the story, and he’s got charisma, but we don’t love him because deep down he’s a narcissistic prick. He loves the idea of his family back together more than any of the actual people in it. Our only other contender for hero is Adam, and it’s not him because, well…he’s Steve Martin. Of the two men vying for the affection of plain Jane, we don’t know who to root for – the dishcloth or the gorilla.

Blake Snyder affirms that good scenes make good films. The reverse is also true. There’s one particularly bad part in which the three children huddle up under a blanket together and have a little cry. It seems that their parents having a bit of slap and tickle is confusing to a bunch of twenty-somethings because, as the youngest one says: ‘We’re still getting over the divorce (sniff).’ It happened a decade ago! And who the hell snuggles up under a blanket with their grown siblings and waits for Mummy to come by and make it all better with a Full House-style talk and a group hug, where even the redundant fiancé gets to join in? All that was missing was Bob Saget.

In the end Jane ditches Jake (Jane and Jake – really?), and we fade out with her having a nice little reconciliation chat with lovely-as-pie-but-boring-as-a-wooden-clothes-peg Adam. I guess nice guys really do get the girl, but only when they’re in their mid- to late-50s. It’s Complicated isn’t a bad film, just mediocre, and filled with excess scenes and characters, and the whole thing is a little flabby, much like Alec Baldwin.