2009 / 118 Minutes / R
Reviewed by Dale J. Nauertz

A man and a woman meet (covertly). They check into a hotel room, glancing over their shoulders to assure that no one they know has seen them. Once inside that room, after indulging in some sexual hanky-panky, the woman expresses her concern over what the two of them are doing. She is worried about being caught. She is guilty over cuckolding another woman. The man tells her that she needn’t worry, that his marriage is a mess/sham, that the moments he spends with his mistress are the best moments of his miserable life. We’ve seen this scene a hundred times if we’ve seen it once. In this case, however, the other woman and the adulterous man were married for almost twenty years and have been divorced for ten.

“It’s Complicated” fits comfortably into the “romantic comedy” genre. It has a man and a woman falling in love. But that, however, is merely a sub-plot, one of the many complications of which the title speaks. The focus of the film is a divorced couple trying to determine whether there is still any spark between them, two lonely people who seem to have moved on with their lives and discover, ten years after the dissolution of their marriage, that perhaps they haven’t moved on as well as they might have thought. Divorce is a common fact of life in this country. Half of all marriages meet that end. Yet, in modern cinema, it’s barely ever shown. Sure, there are divorced people in the movies, but their divorce is almost never focused upon. “It’s Complicated” is refreshing simply because it tackles the messy quagmire of a divorce head-on and explores all of the unresolved issues that go with it.

Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin play Jane and Jake. They met in their twenties, fell in love, got married, had three wonderful kids, and then Jake cheated. They parted ways, Jane taking most of the child-raising responsibilities and Jake marrying the “other woman” (Lake Bell, who seems sort of shrewish but also fairly realistic, one can easily see why being wed to Jake would leave her demanding and exasperated). One weekend, while coming together in New York for their son’s college graduation, they share a meal, have a few drinks too many, and end up sharing a bed. Jane is mortified, though her sex life has been pretty slow since Jake walked out of her life. Jake feels like a new man, having rediscovered something he didn’t even know he was missing: Jane. Old sparks rekindle and soon Jake is trying his hardest to convince Jane that the two of them should get back together…or at least start a lusty affair. As all of this is going on, Jane also begins to have feelings for a kind, recently-divorced architect (Steve Martin) and begins a wonderful love affair that is continually affected by Jake’s persistant (and generally hilarious) advances.

It’s refreshing to see a movie that deals with middle-aged people in a manner that is not condescending. It’s also refreshing to see a love story wherein the participants are not in their late teens or mid-twenties (or, for that matter, in their mid-thirties and feeling the inexorable tick of their biological/relationship clocks). These characters have lived their lives and done a decent job of it. They’re mature and accomplished. So it’s even funnier when their emotions suddenly turn them into complete idiots. It’s fun to watch them re-evaluate their lives and priorities as they become the pawns of emotions they long thought they’d moved past. It’s fun to watch them act as uncertain as teenagers, concocting lies and sneaking around to hide their affair from their own children who, though adults themselves, may still be put through an emotional wringer by having their parents back together. It’s a situation I’ve never seen on film before, and that gives the film a freshness that I frankly didn’t expect.

As expected, however, Meryl Streep is amazing. This has been a great decade for her, allowing her to kick up her heels and try things that take her well outside her prestige-picture comfort zone. She showed an unexpected flair for song in “Mama Mia” and here she shows a previously untapped talent for zany comedy. Her character is grounded and practical, which makes it even funnier when her well-ordered life starts careening out of control. Streep is adept at showing us the aching loneliness that makes her character take such ridiculous chances in the first place, as well as the dormant affection that fuels that loneliness. She’s magnificent here, as she always is.

And Alec Baldwin, who has shown his comedic chops far more frequently than Streep with his role in the always amusing “30 Rock”, bats the role of Jake right out of the park. He’s a philandering cad, to be sure, but he’s likable and (surprisingly) vulnerable enough that we completely understand what drew Meryl’s character to him in the first place. His literally overconfident swagger is hilarious, but it can’t quite disguise the loneliness in his eyes. I wouldn’t be surprised if Baldwin drew from his own well-publicized divorce in playing Jake. The vulnerability and sheer weariness in his face often outweighs the devilish gleam in his eyes. He prowls this movie like a wounded panther.

Also brilliant, thank God, is Steve Martin. Martin finally plays an actual adult in this movie after what seems like decades of playing a cartoon. He’s the most stable of the characters in this movie though he, too, displays a wonderful wounded quality that makes him the perfect third corner of this odd love triangle. While Jake and Jane’s divorce is far in the past, his is still fresh. It’s only been a couple of years since his seemingly stable love life shattered into sharp pieces and, when we first meet him, he’s still learning to cope with that major upheaval. It still haunts him, weighs him down. It’s there in his eyes, in his posture. The benefit, I would say, of casting actors with this level of maturity and life experience is that they have plenty of personal history to draw from in creating these characters. The personal well that Martin, Baldwin and Streep have access to enriches their characters and the movie around them.

Nancy Meyers clearly knows these characters and has dealt with these issues. Her script is rich, clever, surprising and poignant without sacrificing a bit of its humor. If I have made this movie sound like a mature drama, I have only painted half the picture. The situation these characters are in is inherently ludicrous (though still grounded in reality and tinged with appropriate pathos due to the emotional weight involved in the central relationships) and the movie never misses an opportunity to illustrate the absurdity of the situation. One of my favorite set pieces involves a graduation party, a first date and a single joint. It’s one of the funniest, yet most warm-hearted, scenes I’ve seen in a loooong time. Meyers does magnificent work establishing these characters and shaking up their worlds. She brings to this film the same personal, knowing touch that sets her romantic comedies (describing them as such almost feels like an insult) apart from the rest of the pack. The film is touching, true, but it’s also laugh-out-loud funny. The audience I saw it with missed a lot of dialogue because they couldn’t stop laughing. Aside from the three leads, I must also single out “The Office’s” John Krasinski, who generates big laughs as Jake and Jane’s oldest daughter’s fiancee. He brings his usual level of google-eyed yet deadpan hilarity to nearly every scene he’s in.

Nancy Meyers and the actors she’s assembled should be commended. They have crafted a touching, often hilarious film about Love and Divorce and why one so often leads to the other. Compared to the usual fairy tales that pass as “realistic” romances, “It’s Complicated” is a refreshing treat…much like the delectable-looking baked goods that Streep’s baking entrepreneur creates during the film.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 at 8:29 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.