Review of It's Complicated (2009) by Zane T — 26 Feb 2011

"It's complicated" is probably what the producers said to the financial backers of this movie when they presented a bill for a reported $85 million for a movie that has no special effects, except for Alec Baldwin's hair fat ass.

This is the perfect movie companion movie to "Town and Country" to book end how so much money can be spent on a movie about upper class middle aged adults sleeping around. Maybe it's because I'm not a middle aged upperclass business owner, but this movie doesn't really appeal to me.

Meryl Streep, who has been funnier, plays a rich bakery owner, yes, they must exist, who has a fling with her ex-husband played by Baldwin, while attending their son's graduation. Realizing that the sex is still good, they start an affair that last for the first half of the movie, but Streep realizes that she is now the other woman and really, Baldwin is cheating on his current wife with her and really, you can't stop a cheater.

So, she picks up a relationship with the humble and homely Steve Martin, playing an architect named Adam. Adam is so much of a nice guy, you want to wrap him up in a blanket like a baby. I know Martin has been trying to shed his "Wild and Crazy Guy" persona for the last 30 years, but he plays it too straight here.

He is wrongly miscast. In the second half, the movie gets weirder when the children learn of mommy and daddy's affair and realize that they like it, so they have a movie night. Really? Do upperclass families have a movie night and do they watch The Graduate? No, wait, they dont like it and they huddle up together in the bed with the covers on them, even though they range in ages 18-mid-20s.

It doesn't matter. This leads to a big hug scene that is laughable for the wrong reasons. John Krasinski has the reaction role where his character is given nothing to do but react to what is around him.

Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. Here is doesn't. Why, because this movie is not as complicated. It's like Dan in Real Life. It seems to only exist in the minds of the filmmakers.

This works for horror or sci-fi, but this movie which wants to be a romcom for adults is too juvenile.