It's Complicated

Starring: Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, Steve Martin, John Krasinski, Lake Bell, Mary Kay Place, Rita Wilson, Hunter Parrish, Zoe Kazan, Caitlin Fitzgerald
Directed by: Nancy Meyers
Rating: R
Genre: Comedy, Romance
2009

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A mother (Meryl Streep) starts having an affair with her ex-husband (Alec Baldwin) and father of their three children. The only problem is that he's still married.

Review:

Tim: There were definitely moments where I really liked It's Complicated. The story is somewhat interesting, the characters and actors are pretty strong, and there is indeed a great deal of complications. However, the movie is fairly flawed and this prevented it from being very good. In the end, this was just an average movie.

The biggest complaint I have is that the movie is just so long. At 120 minutes, it's not obscenely long, but it is definitely 20 minutes or so longer than it needed it be. It doesn't help that Nancy Meyers' direction has the film plodding along. The movie isn't slow, it's glacial. Meyers manages to make a 2 hour movie feel like 20 hours. The story just creeps along, and it took a great deal of effort for me to sit through this movie. I checked the time frequently throughout the film (bad habit, I know). Often, I would think, "It's probably been about 20 minutes", only to discover it has been 3 minutes. That is never a good sign.

The story is interesting, although it's not quite as complex as the movie would have you believe. Meryl Streep starts having an affair with Alex Baldwin, her ex-husband, who married the woman he cheated on her with years before. Meanwhile, she starts a casual relationship with her architect, played by Steve Martin, who is by all accounts, a great guy. The film manages to blow this up into a supremely scandalous, difficult situation. What is funny is that the film completely telegraphs the ending. There was little to no suspense about what would happen, who would end up with who, and how it would all play out. There was simply the process of sitting through this extremely long movie to watch it unfold exactly as we knew it would.

This is not to say the film is all bad. I actually enjoyed the cast quite a bit. Meryl Streep is such a fantastic actress, and it was fun to see her play an ordinary role, one that didn't require her to exert the full power of her acting ability. She does infuse the role with her special brand of charisma, and makes the part interesting at least. It's fun to see Streep playing a character who is extremely high on marijuana, or to hear her utter phrases like, "I like a lot of semen!" She has a good partner in Alec Baldwin. Baldwin is good as her ex-husband and current lover. He's really just doing a slight variation of his shtick from "30 Rock", but he works well with Streep and is fun to watch. Steve Martin is a good third wheel of this love triangle, although I couldn't stop thinking about how old he looked and how long it's been since he did something of real importance or lasting quality. He was enjoyable in this film, though. Finally, I liked seeing John Krasinski in the film. I'm a big Krasinski fan, so it was fun to see him get a larger role than usual in this film. I can't think of the last time the main character's oldest daughter's husband got so much screen time. It felt a little strange, almost as if they beefed up the role simply because of who he was. While it was a bit odd, it still meant more screen time for Krasinski, so I was all for it.

While there are some legitimately funny moments throughout the film (I laughed out loud several times), and the characters are pretty interesting, there's just not quite enough here to hold the film together for two long hours. While certain aspects of the film are strong, the overall viewing experience was just too taxing. It caused me to want the movie to end desperately, which suggests the film was unable to hold my attention. I wanted to like this movie more, but in the end, it's pedigree was better than its actual quality.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6



If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Something's Gotta Give, Mamma Mia!