Customer Reviews

It's Complicated [Blu-ray]

5 star:		(97)
4 star:		(52)
3 star:		(24)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

Romatic comedy--usually not my genre. This one's different. Very funny, and it's got just the right mix of elements. Number one -- should I say it again -- truly very funny. Everyone in the theatre I saw it with was laughing out loud and having a great time. Number Two -- intelligently written, no mediocrity here. Number Three -- it's about real people who are grown-ups (well, maybe Alex Baldwin's character has got a ways to go), people with lives, children, and friends. Number Four -- it has a good spirit. So many of what passes as comedy today is nothing but nasty or stupid. That's not what's happening here. It's Complicated manages to be generous and wise about human nature without being mushy. Number Five -- Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, and Alex Baldwin do a great job, and seem to be enjoying themselves. I give it a 5 for "totally entertaining".

An aged, divorced mother becomes "the other woman" in her ex-husband's life when the pair enters into an unexpected affair during an out-of-town trip. Jane has been divorced from Jake for a decade. The mother of three grown children, she owns a successful Santa Barbara bakery/restaurant and maintains a friendly relationship with Jake, who has since been remarried to the much younger Agness. Jane and Jake are attending their son's college graduation when they agree to an innocent meal together. Before long a simple dinner date has erupted into an all-out affair.

I thouroughly enjoyed this movie. Meryl Streep is fantastic as usual. Alec Baldwin was right on the money for being a scoundrel. Surprised at Steve Martin's part. He did so well not being funny. Spend a couple hours laughing your heart out. Terrific movie that's highly recommended.

We watched IT'S COMPLICATED the other night, with multiple generations in attendance. And everyone laughed out loud. IT'S COMPLICATED is a light-hearted, refreshing romantic comedy that will entertain you, brighten your spirit, and make you smile.

In IT'S COMPLICATED, Jane and Jack have been divorced for 10 years now, and they have finally come to a sort of workable truce. They have three nearly grown kids together. Jane has a very successful restaurant, and Jake is happily married to the younger woman with whom he cheated. Or is he? Unacustomed time alone together at their youngest son's college graduation leads to an unexpected night in bed together. This one-night-stand blossoms into a full blown affair, which leaves Jane, Jake, and the entire audience wondering if old wounds can be healed and old love rekindled.

While the plot of IT'S COMPLICATED really isn't (it's really pretty formulaic), the acting is truly magnificant. Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, and Steve Martin imbue their characters with life; they truly jump off the screen. Meryl Streep is luminous - funny, warm, gorgeous, sentimental, sympathetic, sensual, and sexy as all get out. Wow, Meryl, please keep proving that life does not end at 40 and that Hollywood is not just for starlets. Alec Baldwin is excellent as Jake - a confused, aging little boy who wants whatever it is that he doesn't have. A near perfect role for Alec Baldwin. And Steve Martin as Adam, Jane's hope-to-be boyfriend, gives one of his best performances in years. The three of them have superb chemistry, and that alone makes this a 5 star film. The supporting cast are equally up to the task, and add depth and nuance to this film.

IT'S COMPLICATED is a delightful way to spend a cozy evening cuddled up with the one you love. IT'S COMPLICATED brings the entertainment, the humor, and the romance. You just need to provide the popcorn and the fluffy blanket.

This is my favorite movie so far this year. It is just plain enjoyable, from the look to the cast to the story. Yes, Alec Baldwin is shameless but he plays shameless very funny and everyone wants Meryl's sunny funny life. Steve is so sweet, you can't help routing for him and Jim Krazinski gets all the funny lines and looks. Great movie and definitely a buy.

Although this has been billed almost solely as a comedy, this film has some very serious moments. It is very funny in parts and overall I really enjoyed it. Be warned though, there are some moments for the romantics in the audience that may not go over. The stand out performance was Baldwin's as he had to do most of the laugh out loud funny stuff. Then in a rapid about face, he had to get deadly serious. I thought it was one of his very best film roles. No one really knew he was a comic actor before 30 ROCK but he sure is. There is one scene where he is posing in front of an Apple laptop in the nude without knowing that it is linked to Streep's new boyfriend, Martin, as they were having a video call with one another before she went to the bathroom. This is utterly hilarious. His giving a sperm sample at the fertility clinic is pretty good too. Streep was very good, as always, but I can't say she was as funny as Baldwin. However, she was an excellent foil for him. Plus it is a boon for women that a plus 60 actress got to play this role. Martin is really in a very small role here. His funniest moment is when he listening to a divorce self help tape in his car and then we find out he's been divorced over 3 years! He really plays a nerd most of the time though, a very nice nerd but certainly not the hilarious guy we know he can be, or the deadly serious one either. As a comedy duo, Baldwin and Streep remind me a bit of Fey and Baldwin on 30 Rock. They are a good comedic duo and I wouldn't mind seeing them make another movie, sort of like Doris & Rock.

I should have recognized the pitfalls of a pre-packaged Nancy Meyers movie since she consistently delivers the same overly manicured, Architectural Digest-meets-The Barefoot Contessa ambiance that perfectly reflects the privileged, vacuous lives of the characters who inhabit her designer comedies (Something's Gotta Give, What Women Want). This middle-brow 2009 romantic triangle farce is no exception as it showcases Meryl Streep as Jane, the successful, late-fiftyish owner of a Santa Barbara boutique patisserie and the mother of three grown children. A decade after her divorce, she still has a congenial relationship with her ex-husband Jake who in true Hollywood-cliché style, left her to marry a much younger woman with abs of steel and a bratty five-year-old. As an empty-nester trying to get used to youngest daughter Gabby going off to college, Jane succumbs to Jake's charms in the bar of a New York hotel where the ex-spouses are staying to attend their son's college graduation.

Their alcohol-infused one-night-stand kick-starts the predictable comedy hi-jinks with Jane's more-recently-divorced architect Adam thrown in the mix for good measure. Considering the star wattage involved, I was surprised how bored I was with the ensuing shenanigans despite the crack comic performances of Streep and Alec Baldwin as the smitten-again Jake. The first problem is that the movie feels overlong at 121 minutes with a slow set-up and an even more gradual wrap-up unfortunately peppered with a sitcom-level, Three's Company-style episode involving a webcam. The second problem is casting Steve Martin, surgically altered and looking like a waxwork, as Adam, a role that begs for flashes of his old wild-and-crazy persona but ends up being a persistent milquetoast who hardly seems romantic rival enough for the far more vibrant and impulsive Jake. Even Martin's brief moment of comic glory during the pot-smoking scene is stolen by Streep's more natural, free-wheeling style.

The rest of the cast is given short shrift in Meyers' belabored screenplay with Lake Bell in the woefully underwritten role of Jake's predictably curt wife and the young actors playing Jane's children - Caitlin Fitzgerald, Hunter Parrish and Zoe Kazan - particularly unctuous and irritating. However, John Krasinski (Away We Go) shines in the minor role of eldest daughter Lauren's affable husband who unexpectedly discovers the affair between Jane and Jake in an amusingly slapstick fashion. John Toll's crisp, lifestyle-magazine-style cinematography makes the movie feel like an extended Food Network program. The 2010 DVD offers just one significant extra, a decent feature-length audio commentary track with Meyers, Toll, executive producer Suzanne Farwell, and editor Joe Hutshing. Perhaps unsurprisingly, none of the principals participated.

Meryl Streep acting her age - wonderful. Alec Baldwin playing himself - wonderful.

Otherwise, it's hard to believe or feel sorry for people in the world portrayed. Designer houses. Designer clothes. Designer children. Meyers has a certain amount of nerve, asking us to sympathize with a woman's empty nest syndrome when her nest is a multi-million-dollar estate in Santa Barbara. Which is still too small for a single senior citizen, apparently, so she hires an oddly orange Steve Martin to build an extension which will be costlier and larger itself than many people's homes.

Between all the perfect teeth, perfect food, perfect weather, perfect hotel suites and perfect background songs, this felt like Sex and the City III. There's even the gang of three caucasian friends hooting and cackling about sex. I came away wondering "How complicated is it, really?"

Nancy Meyers' "It's Complicated" is one of the best examples of how good a modern romantic comedy can be. It's relaxing, enjoyable, laugh out loud funny and competently made. The cinematography and set design are gorgeous. Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin turn in deeply funny work that is both nuanced and realistic without ever loosing the comedy. "It's Complicated" is a great film that pretty much anyone can enjoy!

Such a great movie, all the actors in the movie were a treat to watch. Meryl, Steve, and Alec did a wonderful job with this. It was funny, sad, moving, and incredible.

Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin are among my favorites.But this movie is a dog. First of all the Alec Baldwin character is as self centered and narcissistic as it gets. It's all about what he wants. Sex with his ex is hot and steamy and terrific. So to hell with his wife, to hell with his young son, and forget that the Meryl Streep character is trying to get something going with the rather sweet Steve Martin architect. It's all about him, and he clearly doesn't care about messing up several innocent people's lives. Not romantic, not comedy Also, what other reviewers are saying is correct. How is it that all the lead characters in rom coms live so lavishly? Meryl Streep sells chocolate croissants and has enough money to hire an architect to build a 3000 square foot addition to her house? When she lives there by herself? Get real. Maybe I should take up baking.