IT’S COMPLICATED

Rating: 4

Working from a slight script that rarely surprises, the superb cast of IT’S COMPLICATED make an otherwise mediocre cinematic exercise into something that, if not profound, at least entertaining, at times, even moving.
Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin are Jane and Jake, a happily divorced Santa Barbara couple who have spent the last 10 years learning to be not quite friends, but certainly not enemies. That they share three children, the last one just now leaving the nest has helped with that. But, still, it’s quite a feat, considering Jake left Jane for Agness (Lake Bell) an intense younger woman with a scary tattoo on her shoulder and her own issues with fidelity. Rather than living in the past, Jane has moved on, opening her own wildly successful bakery and raising her kids. She hasn’t found a new life partner, though. Or even a plaything, much to the chagrin of her three gal pals, the ones written into the script to provide a sounding board for Jane and to be her own personal Greek chorus. It’s cliche and it’s egregious, considering Jane also has a therapist, and has more-or-less proved her own sense of self-esteem by eschewing plastic surgery because of the six-month headache it would cause during recovery.
Fate takes a hand in all this by having Jane and Jake on their own, more or less, for a weekend in New York during their son’s college graduation. A drink leads to dinner. Dinner leads to dancing. Dancing leads to exactly what some fundamentalists fear it will lead to. Once the afterglow fades, and Jane has gotten over her hangover, they both realize that there is some unfinished business to be gotten through and with all the giddiness of any affaire de coeur, the embark on a romance that remains clandestine so as not to upset those near and dear.
Of course there are complications. Jake’s married and his wife wants another baby to go with the 5-year-old terror she already has. Jane has finally found a genuinely nice guy, Adam (Steve Martin reprising his character from THE LONELY GUY with less schtick) in the architect who is designing the addition to her house. The kids have finally gotten used to them being divorced and this would only confuse them, even at their ages. And then there’s guilt. At least Jane has guilt. Jake, who doesn’t overthink the moment, is just delighted with the peace, quiet, and home-cooking he’s re-discovered with Jane.
It’s a first-wife’s fantasy. The ex seeing the error of his ways, tiring of the taut and toned second wife, and wanting his discarded, middle-aged wife back. Baldwin brings the glee of it all to life, as well as the genuine sense of regret for what he left behind. Streep, who may be constitutionally incapable of not bringing emotional resonance to any character she plays, brings so many layers of conflicting emotions, as well as a new sense of joy , even silliness, to Jane that she is as irresistible as the perfect chocolate croissants she whips up from scratch. John Krasinski almost steals their thunder as the future son-in-law who accidentally finds out more than he should about what’s going on, and may need more than a glass of wine to help him digest that information. The usual hi-jinks ensue, but played out with a finesse that makes them palatable rather than irksome. I
T’S COMPLICATED is not a milestone of filmmaking, but it’s also not dumb. Meyers homes in on what makes a woman of a certain age tick, from wanting only one sink in her new master bathroom because two would make her sad, to finding perfect fulfillment in a date not with sex, but with the gentleman of the tryst changing a rightful. There is a genuine respect for the human feelings that are in flux, and for the fact that that none of them are undeserving of respect, even empathy. It’s enough to almost make an audience forgive what Streep and Martin do with puff pastry in the name of a bonding montage.