Saturday night... movie night with the girlfriend. She wants to get a film I've never really heard of called It's Complicated, from the description all I see is that it's a romcom. I suggest some other films saying that I'm not really in the mood for another romcom, as there seems to be one released every week lately, they're all so formulaic and we seem to see them all.
Needless to say 5 minutes later we were sitting on the couch, settling in to watch It's Complicated.
Giving in once again does have certain advantages, as I warned her that my objections to seeing yet another romcom gave me license to pay it out, if it came to that. Unfortunately for this film, it did.
As much as I respect her as an actress, all that Meryl Streep touches doth not turn to gold, and as much as I like Alec Baldwin as a comedic actor from the likes of 30 Rock, he cannot save this film. There is nothing to like about the characters, no development at all, they're all unconvincing, unrealistic, ultra-successful, perfect people with perfect lives. Even the situations they get themselves into are perfectly 'complicated' (damn that title), and you know it's all gonna come out perfectly in the end anyway. Don't expect any surprises here. I respect the filmmaker trying to present the romcom from a different angle (middle-age), but it quickly becomes as typical and predictable as the rest, especially with Streep's character behaving the way she does you're quickly forced to forget the different angle presented here that the film had going for it.
Baldwin's character is a terrible misogynist, but that's OK when you present his new trophy wife as a b*tch (played by Lake Bell, totally overshadowed by the better acting talent on offer here just as she was in Boston Legal) with a horrible movie-child, clashing terribly with the too-perfect grown up children Streep and Baldwin's characters had when they were first married.
Streep's character is the most insipid, self-indulgent, shallow character since Carrie Bradshaw. She's impossible to like. For 5 minutes at the start of the film we're presented with a few scenes making it blatantly obvious how alone she's become, 2 minutes after that problem solved, she's in bed with her punch-in-the-face persistent ex-husband Baldwin (leave aside any indication of why they got divorced in the first place, save for a few gratuitous hints that are meant to be quickly forgotten) after giggling like a schoolgirl at the nauseating crap he spouts to get her into bed, which of course leads to the 'complications' the film's title suggests when she meets Steve Martin, the 'perfect guy' you know she's going to end up with. Hard to feel any sympathy for her. I was waiting for her to ask one other character how they were, how their life was going, anything. None of that. She basically plays a 60 year old totally self-absorbed teenager, again giggling like a schoolgirl with her fleeting friends about the sex she's having with her ex in one painful scene.
Steve 'not funny any more' Martin might have been a guy who by the looks of him 15 or 20 years ago was going to age gracefully, but unfortunately he has not let that happen. His face looks like it could melt at any moment, not one wrinkle to be seen, for me taking away any credibility his character might have had. Don't let him near that baking oven, Meryl! We could have a scene akin to the classic facemelting one at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Actually, it might have been entertaining to see what would've happened to Steve's face had he gone too near a heat source.
Add to this a forced performance by John 'Jim' Kraszinski, I love him in The Office but here he ironically seems to be presented as a comic relief to all the 'serious' stuff that's going on, and also add to this a terribly contrived scene at a party where the oldies get 'soooo wasted' off one or two puffs of a joint, a scene which ends up falling totally flat and just gets annoying, and you have a film I really had trouble sitting through.
I hate films that give the viewer no credit whatsoever. We're just supposed to accept a lot of things when we watch certain comedies for the sake of a few laughs. This is certainly one of those. No laughs (for me anyway), bad dialogue, unrealistic characters that are impossible to like or relate to in any way, predictable plot, annoying children... doesn't get much worse than this.
Avoid at all costs.
Needless to say 5 minutes later we were sitting on the couch, settling in to watch It's Complicated.
Giving in once again does have certain advantages, as I warned her that my objections to seeing yet another romcom gave me license to pay it out, if it came to that. Unfortunately for this film, it did.
As much as I respect her as an actress, all that Meryl Streep touches doth not turn to gold, and as much as I like Alec Baldwin as a comedic actor from the likes of 30 Rock, he cannot save this film. There is nothing to like about the characters, no development at all, they're all unconvincing, unrealistic, ultra-successful, perfect people with perfect lives. Even the situations they get themselves into are perfectly 'complicated' (damn that title), and you know it's all gonna come out perfectly in the end anyway. Don't expect any surprises here. I respect the filmmaker trying to present the romcom from a different angle (middle-age), but it quickly becomes as typical and predictable as the rest, especially with Streep's character behaving the way she does you're quickly forced to forget the different angle presented here that the film had going for it.
Baldwin's character is a terrible misogynist, but that's OK when you present his new trophy wife as a b*tch (played by Lake Bell, totally overshadowed by the better acting talent on offer here just as she was in Boston Legal) with a horrible movie-child, clashing terribly with the too-perfect grown up children Streep and Baldwin's characters had when they were first married.
Streep's character is the most insipid, self-indulgent, shallow character since Carrie Bradshaw. She's impossible to like. For 5 minutes at the start of the film we're presented with a few scenes making it blatantly obvious how alone she's become, 2 minutes after that problem solved, she's in bed with her punch-in-the-face persistent ex-husband Baldwin (leave aside any indication of why they got divorced in the first place, save for a few gratuitous hints that are meant to be quickly forgotten) after giggling like a schoolgirl at the nauseating crap he spouts to get her into bed, which of course leads to the 'complications' the film's title suggests when she meets Steve Martin, the 'perfect guy' you know she's going to end up with. Hard to feel any sympathy for her. I was waiting for her to ask one other character how they were, how their life was going, anything. None of that. She basically plays a 60 year old totally self-absorbed teenager, again giggling like a schoolgirl with her fleeting friends about the sex she's having with her ex in one painful scene.
Steve 'not funny any more' Martin might have been a guy who by the looks of him 15 or 20 years ago was going to age gracefully, but unfortunately he has not let that happen. His face looks like it could melt at any moment, not one wrinkle to be seen, for me taking away any credibility his character might have had. Don't let him near that baking oven, Meryl! We could have a scene akin to the classic facemelting one at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Actually, it might have been entertaining to see what would've happened to Steve's face had he gone too near a heat source.
Add to this a forced performance by John 'Jim' Kraszinski, I love him in The Office but here he ironically seems to be presented as a comic relief to all the 'serious' stuff that's going on, and also add to this a terribly contrived scene at a party where the oldies get 'soooo wasted' off one or two puffs of a joint, a scene which ends up falling totally flat and just gets annoying, and you have a film I really had trouble sitting through.
I hate films that give the viewer no credit whatsoever. We're just supposed to accept a lot of things when we watch certain comedies for the sake of a few laughs. This is certainly one of those. No laughs (for me anyway), bad dialogue, unrealistic characters that are impossible to like or relate to in any way, predictable plot, annoying children... doesn't get much worse than this.
Avoid at all costs.