It’s Complicated

Last week my dear friend, John Bridges, was planning to see “It’s Complicated” when he read my column about “Up in the Air” and decided to see it instead. When he told me what he planned to do, I said that I suspected “It’s Complicated” would be more entertaining, but that “Up in the Air” was probably the better, more substantive film. I’m humbled and honored that he trusts my recommendations, and I couldn’t help but think of him, as I watched “It’s Complicated” a few days later, pleasantly surprised at how good it was. It’s funny and charming, and highly entertaining—but not just. It also manages to deliver some insight and provoke some thought.

So, John, this week, I’m recommending you go see, “It’s Complicated,” and for all of us, I recommend we set our Facebook relationship statuses to “It’s Complicated.” After all, when have relationships ever not been?

Jane Adler (Meryl Streep) is the mother of three grown kids, owns a thriving Santa Barbara bakery/restaurant and has—after a decade of divorce—an amicable relationship with her ex-husband, attorney Jake (Alec Baldwin). But when Jane and Jake find themselves out of town for their son’s college graduation, things start to get complicated. An innocent meal together leads to several bottles of wine, which in turn becomes a laugh-filled evening of memories about their 19-year marriage… and then to an impulsive affair. With Jake remarried to the much younger Agness (Lake Bell), Jane is now, of all things, the other woman. Caught in the middle of this renewed romance is Adam (Steve Martin), an architect hired to remodel Jane’s kitchen. Also divorced, Adam starts to fall for Jane, but soon realizes he’s become part of an unusual love triangle. Should Jane and Jake move on with their separate lives, or has the passage of time made them realize that they really are better together than apart? It’s…complicated.

Nancy Myers, an extremely talented writer/director, who two years ago wrote and directed one of my all-time favorite Christmas movies, “The Holiday,” proves once again that Hollywood needs far more women in front of and behind the camera. Her writing is clever, witty, and by turns, poignant and hysterical, and whether paired with Meryl Streep, Diane Keaton, Cameron Diaz, or Kate Winslet, she gives moviegoers mature, powerful, multi-faceted women not seen nearly often enough at the Cineplex (art house and indie theaters are a different matter, but good luck finding one). And that’s the thing. Myers is bringing feminism to the masses—a certain type of feminism, mostly light-hearted, comedic, meant-to-entertain-first, but a real feminism to be sure. And she’s mastered (or should I say mistressed) the romantic comedy, which she understands in the context of contemporary culture. “There's a hardening of the culture,” she said. “Reality TV has lowered the standards of entertainment. You’re left wondering about the legitimacy of relationships. It's probably harder to entertain the same people with a more classic form of writing, and romantic comedies are a classic genre.”

Film and literature are rife with tales of adultery—from King David and Bathsheba, whose relationship ultimately led to Jesus of Nazareth, to “The Scarlet Letter,” to “Anna Karenina,” to “Brief Encounter,” to “The End of the Affair”—but in both film and literature, most tales of not-entirely-unattached lovers are dramas, if not melodramas, involving guilt-ridden, tortured, ultimately doomed souls, who are punished for what is seen as religious and cultural and personal transgression. But Myers shows that affairs, which are often, among other things, fun, can be funny, life-affirming, and highly entertaining experiences. She does this, in part, by making the lovers formerly married, which gives them a culturally sanctioned relationship in the past and a prior claim over their current lovers. And isn’t that how most people feel—“He was mine first.” “She belonged to me before you even knew her!”

Justification and palatability aside, the movie is about adultery. John Updike saw adultery—whether in life or only art, I do not know, though I suspect both—as “an imaginative quest,” and, as one of his characters put it, “a way of giving yourself adventures, of getting out in the world and seeking knowledge.” The psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich actually claims “the only social purpose of compulsory marriage for life is to produce submissive personality types that mass society requires,” and that “repressing sexual curiosity leads to general intellectual atrophy, including loss of power to rebel,” which has led Laura Kipnis, author of “Against Love” and “The Female Thing” to assert that “adultery is actually an act of cultural rebellion” and that “monogamy turns nice people into petty dictators and household tyrants.” Radical notions? Perhaps, but we’re all swimming around in the water of culture like fish who don’t know what water is, and our best hope of awareness enlightenment and compassion is to entertain all questions. And no one should question culture and marriage and roles and identity more than women. Thankful many are—from Myers to Kipnis to Anne Kingston, author of “The Meaning of Wife.” And, as Thomas Moore, author of “Care of the Soul” teaches, none of this need be taken literally.

I really appreciate what Myers has done here. True, “It’s Complicated” could have been far more complicated, but for a mainstream romantic comedy, it at least has audience sympathies in the right places. The film could’ve dealt with affairs in a more nuanced, less adulterous way—take out lying and cheating, and things are less complicated and far more honorable—but it’s a comedy and a big commercial studio film, and given that, it’s very, very good.

Forget “greatest living actress.” It’s time to refer to Meryl Streep as what she is—the greatest actress in history. And at sixty-something, could she be any more beautiful, attractive, strong, sexy?

Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin turn in fine, admirable performances, both bringing their characters to life with certain appeals for Meryl Streep’s Jane Adler, but clearly she is out of their league. I won’t tell you which man Jane chooses, only that to make things truly complicated, she should’ve kept both men as friends and lovers. Jane could certainly handle it. And Meryl, well, Meryl could handle an entire harem—or (since there’s not a word for a female harem, which is telling, is it not?) a stable.

Life and love and relationships are complicated enough to make one want to cry, but perhaps a better approach is laughter. Myers certainly makes a convincing argument.