Sitcoms are, by nature, broad and irritating. Someone stumbles into a room and canned laugher erupts. Two people talk at each other without ever attempting to listen. A person says something that is misread as innuendo -- bring on the cackles. Nancy Meyers clearly enjoys making movies that resemble sitcoms, as she has demonstrated with "Something's Gotta Give," "What Women Want" and now "It's Complicated." It's a formula in serious need of a makeover.
If not for the A-list actors that join Meyers' movies - this time it's Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin -- they would cause as much brain damage as the new 90210. "It's Complicated" has the same artificial moments, slapstick encounters and forced laughter as its predecessors, but it also has a particularly idiotic plot: Jane (Streep), a baker, is long-divorced from the father of her children, Jake (Baldwin), after he cheated on her and then married his much-younger mistress (Lake Bell). Things get heated when J&J have too much to drink at their son's graduation and end up with a case of bedroom déjà vu, which turns into a full-blown affair. Cue Shirley Bassey's "History Repeating."
Is the 50+ dating pool really so poor that the come-ons of a cheating, chubby ex-husband would serve as an aphrodisiac? It's hard to laugh at something so tragic, even if it gives Streep the opportunity to flail her arms and yuk it up with John Krasinski (playing her daughter's boyfriend). Adding to the tension is architect Adam (Steve Martin), who is drawn to emotionally-unavailable Jane after a messy divorce. He has all the personality of a beige duvet cover, so you don't exactly root for him to swoop in and steal her heart. Instead, you wish for Jane to find a good therapist, for Jake to get a life and for Meyers to please find another kind of movie to make.
"It's Complicated" is nothing of the sort - it's trite, over the top and tonally confused. The movie never rises above its shoddy sitcom roots, even with a few silly lines and solid acting from Streep and Baldwin (not Martin, who is in full-on sleepwalker mode). Where's a laugh track when you need one?
