2003 / 117 Minutes / PG-13
Reviewed by Dale Nauertz

Alright, kids, here it is; secret confession time. I am a sucker for romance. Does that mean I am a romantic? Probably so. Yes. I believe in the idea of romance, of falling head over heels in love with someone and having them love me back. Maybe I believe in it even more since I have never really experienced that sort of thing. I’ve thought I was in love plenty of times, mostly with the same couple of women over and over again, but, alas, they have never quite returned the favor. That is why I believe in romance so strongly, because I want it to be true. I want to believe that it really can happen to me, even if the evidence is to the contrary most of the time. Also, maybe the sheer number of romantic comedies I have seen over the years have given me unrealistic expectations. Maybe the reason I’ve never had that kind of love is because I want movie love rather than the real deal. I want it to be magical. I want it to upset my life. I want it to be like it is in the movies. And I don’t believe that it is too much to ask.

The only conceivable reason I can think of for pouring my heart out over the keyboard like this, for sharing my pathetic little soul with all of you out there in cyberspace, is because I have seen a great romantic comedy and it has awakened these feelings in me all over again. I want to go out to a bar, right now, meet the perfect woman and spend the rest of my life with her. But I doubt that the perfect woman is currently at a bar, right at this moment. And, also, I am pretty much broke having just spent my paycheck on Christmas presents and, oh, all right, a couple things that I bought for myself. You see, a great romantic film makes you feel lonely and happy all at the same time. It makes you feel lonely because you are not currently involved in the sort of relationship that you have just seen onscreen. And it makes you feel happy because it makes you think that there is a chance, however remote, that you actually could be involved in that sort of relationship sometime in the near future, and that it could be simply amazing. A bad romantic film arouses none of those feelings, however, and just leaves you feeling pretty much the way you did before you saw it. And I don’t believe in that. I believe a movie should have SOME sort of effect on you. In that way, I would value a movie that inspires revulsion or depression more than one that inspires absolutely nothing at all.

As you may have already gathered from these ramblings, “Something’s Gotta Give” is a great romantic comedy. It has two leads who seem meant to be together, from the very first frame, and then shows you how they come to be together. It also shows you the little problems and pitfalls along the way. Because, even in the movies, love ain’t easy. Not in the good ones, anyway. And the reasons why the two main characters can’t connect should be honest, realistic reasons rather than contrivances. I will not accept such plot contortions as one character having to pretend to be gay or a character thinking that the other is actually their brother or something ridiculous such as this. But in this movie, we see what might happen if a woman embittered by the failed parts of her life and a man who shies away from commitment as a habit and chases after woman a fraction of his age might meet and fall in love. And at no time did this movie make me cry foul. The film plays fair with its two main characters, it believes in them and it believes in the idea of love and, for the two hours and fifteen minutes that you are sitting in the theater staring at the screen, it made me believe in these things too. It is a well-written film, devoid of gimmickry or smugness. It is an honest film, as I said before, that earns every emotion we devote to it, without pandering or reducing itself to an exercise in sappy clichés.

Most of that has to do with the writing. This film is expertly plotted and often quite hilarious. The characters feel like actual people rather than caricatures and the developments of the plot feel organic. This is the way I wish all romantic comedies were written. Bad or even simply average romantic comedies adhere strictly to a certain paint by numbers approach. If you’ve ever seen any romantic comedy, you know exactly what is going to happen at every step of the way. But the great romantic comedies mix things up, they shake everything up a bit and make it seem fresh, hell, even realistic. Sure, when Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson first meet in “Something’s Gotta Give” they hate one another, and at the end of the movie, they are complete soul mates. We might have suspected as much simply from the trailer. But I didn’t know how things would progress between them, or where it was going from one scene to the next. And I love that. In writing and directing this affair, Nancy Meyers has done a fantastic bit of work.

Another of the major components in this whole thing working are the leads. If you don’t believe Jack or Diane (hmm, wasn’t there a John Mellencamp song about this?) are who they say they are, the whole thing falls apart. Thankfully, Nicholson and Keaton are two consummate pros that slip into these roles like a pair of well-worn slippers. Sure, neither actor is really stretching into completely new territory, but I have come to believe that this is an overrated quality. Jack Nicholson has basically made a career out of playing slightly chauvinistic commitment-phobes, but that’s because he has this down to a science. I believed in him a lot more here than I did in his overrated turn in “About Schmidt”. Sure, he was good in that, but he never quite made it effortless to me. Here, he’s absolutely perfect. And Diane Keaton has made a life out of playing neurotic, fast-talking women, but she truly shines here. I doubt anyone could have made heartbreak as truthful and hilarious all at the same time as she does in this film. Both leads are perfect. So perfect, in fact, that the rest of the cast seems to be wasted in their minor roles. Jon Favreau has literally nothing to do here. Keanu Reeves is charming, but the movie requires nothing more from him. Frances McDormand is great in the few scenes that she is in, but she’s in the trailer more than she is in the movie. And you know what? Jack and Diane’s characters are so good that to give these other characters more screen time would have been a distraction. The movie isn’t about them. They are there to do what they must do to make us believe in Jack and Diane falling for one another. That’s all they have to do and they do it as well as they are allowed. I didn’t wish for more of them, though I was glad to have them here in the limited capacities that they occupy. Nicholson and Keaton are both magnificent here, and it’s refreshing to see a love story about two world-weary people in the later part of middle age. These two are senior citizens, yet they still exude more charm and finesse and grace than people half their age. (And, incidentally, Diane Keaton is still lustrous to behold.)

The movie doesn’t have a whole lot to say, sure, and it isn’t going to change the world. Fine. So be it. If that’s not your cup of tea, you have been warned. And it’s not revolutionary filmmaking either. But style has only a limited place in a movie like this. “Down With Love”, by contrast, has boatloads of style but amounted to a very hollow piece of work that was actually a little too clever for its own good. “Something’s Gotta Give” has as much style as it needs, and it never feels too long, it never feels overdone, it never feels sappy. It just feels right. And it made me feel the way that a good romantic comedy should make me feel: lonely but optimistic. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to watch “To Live and Die in L.A.” I’ve never seen that movie, but it promises to be exciting and thrilling and, hopefully, gritty and dangerous. But if I wallow in this feeling of optimistic loneliness too much longer, I’m probably going to do something stupid like calling a girl that I really shouldn’t. And, again, that’s the feeling a good romance should have.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 12th, 2003 at 3:16 pm and is filed under Dale's Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.