Okay, this is going to be a long review. More than any movie I've seen in recent memory, It's Complicated struck me as a disturbing commentary on American society. It is all the more revealing because the filmmaker seems unaware that her movie celebrates women who live lives of material wealth and moral poverty.
I saw It's Complicated because I had just watched Summertime, David Lean's 1955 movie about adultery. So this was a chance to compare two venerable actresses in similar roles: Katharine Hepburn as a 50-ish spinster, Streep as a 60-ish divorcée-- coincidentally or not, both named Jane. There's a world of difference between being divorced and being a spinster, but both Janes are lonely women who enter brief affairs. The trouble is, there's a full universe of differences between the directors-- the supremely accomplished David Lean (who, incidentally, directed one of the finest films ever about love affairs, Brief Encounter), and one-trick-pony Nancy Meyers (chick flick). Summertime has a far better script, Hepburn's Jane is vulnerable but honorable, and the movie was entirely filmed in glorious Venice. It's Complicated, on the other hand, is an dishonorable and unfunny comedy set in Santa Barbara, which in this movie looks like it was built last year as a tribute to what money can buy.
Money is practically a character in the movie. It saturates every frame. "You've Feng-shui'd your life," a friend says admiringly to Jane, whose house is unmitigated Martha Stewart. Not one item in it suggests idiosyncratic or personal taste. The focus is on kitchens and bathrooms, the latter being a peculiar obsession with Americans. Bathrooms are used for dressing scenes, a private phone call scene, a marijuana scene, a puking scene, a bathtub scene. Jane even uses a bathroom to describe her feelings: she has his and hers sinks, and the his sink makes her sad. But Jane is a professional cook, so her extravagance really shows up in lavish kitchens. She already has two, in her bakery and in her home, yet she hires architect Adam (a superb Steve Martin) to build her "dream kitchen" as part of a whole new wing for her freshly empty nest.
Jane's materialism is a symptom of her moral poverty. She claims that she's a slave to her conscience, but her conscience has the tensile strength of wet toilet paper. She sleeps with her ex, Jake (Alec Baldwin) even though he's remarried and his philandering was a major reason she divorced him. Being an adulteress bothers Jane a bit-- though not enough to actually end it. Quite the opposite, in fact. She giggles about the adultery at her kaffee klatsches. She coyly encourages Jake, who at one point even says to her, "Is it really necessary for you to always say no before you say yes?" She laughs at his every quip. In fact, Streep laughs incessantly. I kept hoping it was meant to be nervous laughter, hiding some emotional depth. But there's no indication of that. I finally concluded that Meyers directed Streep to giggle her way through the movie so as remind the audience that it's a comedy.
Jane's only attempt to address the situation is to throw money at it: She runs to her shrink-- not for a full session, mind you, adultery isn't that big a problem. Dr. Shrink is a busy man but he squeezes her in for 15 minutes, which is plenty because all she wants is for him to tell her what to do so she doesn't have to decide for herself. And what does he advise?? Keep up the adultery, so she can fully explore what it's like to ignore her conscience. No wonder he's got a full schedule.
And so the adultery continues. On screen. The sex scenes are unnecessary but they do provide more revelatory parallels with Summertime. It's Complicated exists to prove to American women that we can still be attractive individuals even if we look more like Calamity Jane than Jane Russell. The third time that Jane beds Jake, she hides behind her robe for fear of not appearing sexy enough for him, never mind he's a tub of lard. Jane is victimized by vanity. And director Meyers exacerbates the problem by attempting to make the sex scenes comic, without even the hint of eroticism--what message does that send about the midlife libido? In stark contrast, Hepburn's Jane shows no physical self-consciousness with Rossano Brazzi; she's 48, he's 40, they both look 50, and the sex is off-camera where it belongs because their affair is based on attraction, not lust. It's a refreshingly adult situation handled with due restraint. Clearly, we've regressed considerably since Summertime in 1955.
Streep's Jane's vanity can, perhaps, be forgiven because it reflects the zeitgeist: in just six years, between 2000 and 2006, cosmetic surgery increased in the U.S. by 50 percent. What can't be forgiven is the film's endorsement of such superficiality, and its despicable attitude toward Jake's new wife, Agness (Lake Bell). She's set up to be hateful. Her body enters the movie before her face, because she's introduced in a bathing suit with a close-up of her bare torso. Nancy Meyers thus establishes Agness as a trophy wife, diminishing her (nice attitude toward women there, Nancy) and helping the audience nod and wink as Jane continues the illicit affair.
Does anybody remember Alan Alda's The Four Seasons (1981)? It's also bittersweet story of divorce, but in it a 42-year-old man (Len Cariou) divorces his middle-aged wife (Sandy Dennis) and remarries a 28-year-old (Bess Armstrong) who is charming, sensitive, good- natured, good-humored, and genuine. The fact that the young wife is likable creates a far more interesting situation. It is not only more respectful of women as individuals, no matter what their age, but also more emotionally intricate for both the characters and the audience. Compared to Alda's modest but realistic comedy, Meyers' is a cynical insult, especially to women.
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