‘It’s Complicated’ Gives Way to Forced Humor and Dull Conventions
-----Meryl Streep is loved no matter what film she stars in. Sometimes she deserves such acclaim, like with her performance in this year’s ‘Julie & Julia,’ and at other times like in ‘It’s Complicated,’ she simply blends in. Although it’d be a lie if I said she was the real problem with ‘It’s Complicated,’ a film that starts out well enough but gradually evaporates into tiresome conventions and painful “that’s what she said” antics.
-----Jane has been divorced from her ex-husband for many years now, and yet she’s just starting to really get over it. As for him, he’s married a young trophy wife with a need for more kids in addition to her current demon child. When he and Jane meet in a bar at their son’s graduation, they just as quickly find themselves in bed together; and with time their promiscuous meetings grow more frequent and more enjoyable for the two…that is, until (surprise!) they discover the reality of the situation.
-----Meryl Streep plays Jane, a woman flustered by her and her ex’s ongoing affair. Like much of the cast, she’s funny enough for a while until the film gets repetitive, and the jokes get bland. Playing her ex-husband is Alec Baldwin. Needless to say I think we see a bit too much of his anatomy for anyone to enjoy, but he remains funny every now and then with his utter amusement of the affair at hand. Of course, then he too starts to fade. Playing the third wheel of sorts is Jane’s new romantic interest, her architect, played by Steve Martin. It’s refreshing to see Martin play a character his own age for a change, and he gets some mild laughs until…wait for it…he too grows insipid as the film enters its predictably serious and irrevocably dull third act. On a side note, one of the film’s few consistently funny performances comes from John Krasinski (‘Leatherheads’). Krasinski’s supporting role as Jane’s son-in-law-who-knows-too-much is played knowledgeably by the comedian most commonly recognized for his work on TV’s ‘The Office.’ Yet his is a small role, and hardly enough to bring the film out of its impending darkness.
-----As is often the case with such films as ‘It’s Complicated,’ they offer nothing new to the genre, nor do they provide adequate entertainment to fuel their blatant convention. What starts out as a devil-may-care take on an older couple recalling what they loved about each other becomes a soapy melodrama about divorce and why you can’t just get back together. How touching, but then…why is the audience so uncaring? The answer is that even a veteran cast can only salvage so much from gross-out gags and naughty humor; and even worse, the film loses pretty much any element of light fun when it tries to tell a story. Likewise, its pace slows down more and more until you just want to be done with the whole affair.
-----The warm and calm musical score also loses steam with time. It’s a sort of pleasant chime that can’t hold up for more than twenty minutes, eventually melting into elevator music as the plot crawls along. Pretty soon thereafter it becomes an utter nonfactor, if occasionally an annoyance by the film’s end. The locations on the other hand are adequate enough, with some nice set pieces here and there, centering mainly on Jane’s lavish home and elaborate bakery.
-----While my final review sounds much harsher than the film’s ultimate rating, it’s easy to get caught up in the bad things about a film when they all attack simultaneously. Worse still is when the downfall occurs primarily in the third act. It’s not so much a crash and burn conclusion as was the case with this year’s action flick ‘Law Abiding Citizen,’ it’s more like watching an old man die slowly. The humor is enjoyable for a fair while, as is the casts’ strong chemistry with each other. And in all reality, you kind of keep assuming the film may pull it out, and end pleasantly if not excellently. Of course, that’s when you think you’re in the final few minutes of the film, only to be dragged along for another twenty or so minutes; and I typically like lengthy features. The film’s initial strategy to develop relationships among minor characters backfires, as the unnecessary bits from the early proceedings equate to dulled audiences by the time the film reaches the final thirty minutes of the two hour runtime. What starts as a warm and cozy film shows its true colors as an overly raunchy and ultimately dutiful procedural that wrenches out its third act in a suggestion that the filmmakers grew as tired of the plot as you now are. The result is frustration over the two hours of your life you’ll never get back. There are simply better choices when it comes to divorce comedies and veteran acting collaborations. In fact, why not revisit ‘Mrs. Doubtfire?’
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