It’s Complicated (2010)
It’s Complicated(USA) Directed by Nancy Myers Written by Nancy Myers Starring Meryl Streep; Alec Baldwin; Steve Martin; John Krasinksi; Lake Bell; Mary Kay Place; Rita Wilson
Meryl Streep is one of our country’s finest actors, and her iconic performances in classics like Kramer Vs. Kramer; The Deer Hunter; and Sophie’s Choice remain in our collective memory, but with a treacly, insipid, and unimaginitve film like It’s Complicated no one (not even an estimable veteran actress with multiple Academy Awards to her credit) gets out alive. Writer/director Nancy Meyers is a woman who makes highly commercial films largely centered on female characters who’ve aged as she has, which makes her standout some in a highly male dominated industry. Her work, however (with a few notable exceptions), has always been of somewhat questionable cinematic quality. With Hollywood churning out action and effects-laden event movies based on comic books and video games, the ones that are constructed with characters resembling actual human beings (or some semblance of them, anyway) are often thrillers and rom coms with paint by numbers, signposted plotting, anemic character development, and predictable dialogue. Here, Meyers gives us nothing more than another typical inane rom com, with the only variable (and not much of one at that) being that the focus is on two aging exes (Jake and June Adler) who rediscover one another when brought together for major events in their children’s lives (see Last Chance Harvey (2009) and That Old Feeling (1997) for variations on the theme). Streep spends the film filling in the gaps with bouts of false sounding giggling, and Baldwin is simply awful in every respect. Both actors demonstrate their understanding that this is something far from real life by indicating throughout, clearly playing this for yucks, which comes off even stranger still because there are none. Though supposedly educated, wealthy professionals, their respective characters are foolish people, and neither are the slightest bit likable as individuals, or, as a couple. Unfortunately, the main supporting players Steve Martin, John Krasinksi, and Lake Bell (who in fairness are given a lot less to do) aren’t a lick better in their underwritten, underdeveloped, and unfunny roles (P.S. does anyone, for a second, buy these people as an actual family?). Many of the scenes are so poorly acted and written that the watching is excruciating, both due to the fact that the overall story is entirely uninvolving, unappealing, and trite, and also because one is constantly aware that this is the Meryl Streep we’re watching, and it is acutely painful to observe an actor of her stature involved in this dismal, banal garbage. Though the intended audience is clearly baby boomers in and around retirement age, bad is bad, and fluff is fluff, no matter what the ages of the main characters. There was a time when Baldwin did quality dramatic work (see Miami Blues; Hunt for Red October; Glengarry Glenross), but though he is effective in the successful comedic series 30 Rock, it’s been ages since he gave an impressive, substantial performance in a well rendered drama. Decent supporting appearances in films like The Cooler; The Good Shepherd; and State and Main have been the highlights of his last twenty years of film work. Still, despite the spotty career path he hasn’t, to this viewer’s memory, previously demonstrated this level of ineptitude. Yes, the material is embarrassingly awful, but the performance is lazy and solipsistic, and has nothing to do with the art of embodying a living and breathing human being in any real way. Streep, who is nine years older than Baldwin, has obviously fared better professionally, especially in the past decade, though even her presence fails to contribute to delivering a single authentic scene in this entire smarmy, horribly modulated debacle.