I had the chance to go see It’s Complicated a few days ago. Overall, the movie is entertaining, though it isn’t one of my favorites.
Jake and Jane have been divorced for ten years. Jake eventually married the younger woman he had an affair with, Agness while Jane focused on her bakery business. Their son is graduating from college in New York City, one of their daughters is engaged, and I’m not sure what is going on with the other daughter. The family goes to New York for the graduation and Jake and Jane end up having dinner together. They both drink way too much and they end up having sex. Jake is thrilled and wants to continue the sexual relationship while Jane is upset by what happened. She says it isn’t going to happen again, but it isn’t long before she ends up back in bed with him once back home. She also starts spending some time with Adam, the architect designing the addition to her house. Harley, the man engaged to Lauren, discovers what Jake and Jane are up to.
Really not much actually happens during the movie even though some of the situations are complicated. Jake and Jane had been married for a long time before their marriage fell apart when he was having an affair with Agness. Evidently she then left Jake at some point for another man, got pregnant, and then had another affair with Jake. She ultimately left the father of her child for Jake and they got married. I had thought that Jake and Agness had gotten married soon after his divorce from Jane. The extra stuff with his relationship with Agness really doesn’t add much, though it does help establish that Jake will have an affair with a woman he had previously been with.
There are some really funny moments in the movie, though it isn’t as funny overall as I had hoped. Most of the funniest parts were in the various trailers I’d seen. I did think Harley’s reactions to finding out about the affair and his attempts to change the subject were funny. Adultery is treated very lightly and that just doesn’t seem right to me. Jane sort of has some guilt, but she gets over it so quickly, it seems more superficial. One of her friends did raise an objection, but the others quickly hushed her, going on about how wonderful it was, especially since they hate Agness. Then there was the whole bit of Jane talking to her therapist about it and he basically tells her to have fun and that the affair isn’t going to hurt anyone or anything. That just didn’t seem right at all and it still bugs me.
The movie does have a good cast, though some of them are wasted and basically have nothing to do. Jane’s friends are only in a couple of scenes and really don’t add anything. Meryl Streep is really good in the part. I think Alec Baldwin handled the part of Jake well, but I just didn’t like the character. Adam is probably the nice character in the movie, so I was disappointed that Steve Martin didn’t get more to do. Jane and Jake’s kids seem odd in the way they act, almost like they are still young children instead of adults. Harley ends up being a very entertaining character.
I did enjoy the movie overall, though the more I thought about it while working on my review for Epinions, the less I liked certain things. Originally I was going to go with 4 stars and I ultimately went with 3, though I would have gone with 3.5 if I could have.
I did get a review posted at Epinions too.
It's Complicated
