The American Spectator : It's Complicated

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It's Complicated

By James Bowman on 1.20.10 @ 6:02AM

A chick-flick for gals who should know better.

If the Western was the prototypical genre of the 1950s and the film noir of the 1940s and the gangster film of the 1930s, then I sometimes think that the chick flick is the master-genre of our own time. I leave out of account, of course, the superhero and sci-fi fantasies designed to appeal to teenagers which are not so much a genre as a highly-engineered industrial product run off sophisticated Hollywood assembly lines by the yard and perfectly uniform in their artistic negligibility. The chick flick, though in its way it is as much a power fantasy as the superhero blockbuster, is at least made for adults and has the usual artistic variability to it. A movie like An Education or Kenneth Lonergan's You Can Count on Me of a few years ago transcends the usual empowerment fantasy and moves us with a sympathetic but not uncritical look at the lives of women that women, especially, will be interested in seeing. Many of the films of the late, great Eric Rohmer could be classified as chick flicks, though I don't know that they ever attracted roving bands of educated but emotional female pals in search of a good time the way Sex and the City did. And, unlike Sex and the City, they are far from being unwatchable by men.

According to the London Daily Telegraph, the "girls' night out" audience is now the most sought after by producers in London's West End theatre district:

Many of the shows that are proving popular with female audiences share a similar storyline, in which goodness triumphs in the most unlikely ways -- and the person who is true to themselves wins through. In Hairspray, Tracy's weight proves no obstacle to dancing triumph and her broad-mindedness conquers petty small-town rivalries and racial slights. In Dirty Dancing, Johnny's integrity matters more than his background: his honesty and courage get him the girl. In Legally Blonde, Elle doesn't have to change to succeed -- she makes others change by her basic common sense. These shows are also a celebration of all that is best about people. They affirm the pleasures of love, of friendship, of life itself. Calendar Girls is explicit in its theme: in the face of illness, sadness and despair, women can band together and make things better. Here, on stage in front of you, modern fairy tales unfold, evil is vanquished and everything ends up happily ever after. That's the secret of a great girls' night out at the theatre: by its close, the world is set to rights.

In other words, you could say that there is a feminist and utopian subtext in these shows and in many of the chick-flicks they resemble, since their purpose is to validate the central role of the strong, effectual, independent woman in a world that has been made congenial to her -- more congenial, anyway, than we know the real world very often is.

All this is by way of prologue to Nancy Meyers's It's Complicated because the movie itself, a prototypical chick flick, leaves one with so little to say about it. Meryl Streep plays Jane, a woman in her 50s with a successful career as a businesswoman, grown children, and an ex-husband (Alec Baldwin) who left her nine years previously for a much younger woman (Lake Bell). The old story. But every woman in that situation, or sympathetic to those who are, will thrill to this version of the story in which the ex-husband tires of the young, new wife and begs to come back to Jane at the same time she is being courted by a much nicer, much more female-friendly and even uxorious sort of man (Steve Martin), so giving her the opportunity -- whether or to what extent she takes it or not I forbear to reveal -- to reject the ex but not the sex.

At least I suppose they will thrill to it, as this movie was obviously intended, like Ms. Meyer's previous and now classic chick flick, Something's Gotta Give (2003), as a crowd pleaser. All the characters are well-to-do, if not rich, all the children are darling and sympathetic to mom's revived love-life without wishing for their parents to re-marry. The young wife is obviously a harridan in the making. As in many chick-flicks, there are a number of scenes in which the principal female character forgathers with her girlfriends for wine and girl-talk, in one of which she confesses that she is now "the other woman" to the woman who was once the other woman to her. "I'm the one we hate," she says with mock guilt and contrition in her voice. All agree that she's not. Not at all. And that they all still hate the other other woman.

The best line in the movie comes when Steve Martin's character gently tells Jane, what once would have been obvious, that she had better sort out her on-again, off-again relationship with her ex-husband before there can be any further talk of any romance between the two of them. "So that's how grownups talk," murmurs Jane admiringly. I'd like to believe that this amounts to a brief moment of self-knowledge on the part of the film, an acknowledgment that its chief appeal must be to the emotionally stunted and immature, but I kind of doubt it. This is fantasy for overgrown girls the way that superhero movies are fantasy for overgrown boys, and if there's one thing we know about our debased popular culture, it's that such fantasies sell.

About the Author

James Bowman, our movie and culture critic, is a resident scholar at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. He is the author of Honor: A History and Media Madness: The Corruption of Our Political Culture, both published by Encounter Books.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (21) | Leave a comment

drudge ette obama| 1.20.10 @ 6:21AM

I can't look at this guy without hearing that telephone message where he calls his daughter a pig. What kind of creep calls his daughter a pig?

So I pass on the movie.

drudge ette obama| 1.20.10 @ 7:17AM

Isn't this kind of lifestyle what got Tiger Woods in trouble?

Alan Brooks| 1.20.10 @ 10:22AM

Yes but even the religious confuse being young in head with young at heart.

Appleby| 1.20.10 @ 6:51AM

Yes, the trend is to make movies reinforcing the daydream men started foisting on *girls* in the Sixties, that YouHaveToHaveSexEveryDayOrYouDie.

In other words, to convince women that the male version of life as eternal bouts of sex with everybody and anybody -- and that when you abandon somebody for sex wtih somebody else, there oughta be no hard feelings because, hey, sex is REQUIRED, maaaaan -- is The Only Normal Way To Behave.

And that all those advertisements for stuff to prop up the sagging wee-wee do not after all mean that maybe God has another POV.

These movies are disgusting and are no truer now than they were in the Sixties. But they will not go away until the Sixties Kids are no longer in charge of promulgating their fantasies as the truth.

DR_X| 1.20.10 @ 7:53AM

At one time men who acted like Jane were called pigs, and women who acted in a like manner did not have a good reputation. Now such people of both genders are seen as being “free and liberated” though their behavior is childish and immature. This is the legacy of women’s liberation, women are now free to even bigger selfish pigs than men.

Bilwick1| 1.20.10 @ 9:51AM

"YouHaveToHaveSexEveryDayOrYouDie."

You don't have to. It's just more fun.

gearjammer| 1.20.10 @ 10:03AM

Appleby, the 60's kids will always own Hollywood and all the rest. Two things can cut them down to size competition and the end of no choice cable and the rest. The money from this source allows them to charge all for things they would never watch. Ala Cart cable is needed so we pay for only what we want to watch. Look at the money Larry David scored for the rights to run a so so show in reruns ? We need to stop feeding this beast and start our own film industry. Meryl Streep is hard to figure. She makes thoughtful interesting movies like Marvin's room and Doubt and then does garbage-the latter-the mega bucks. She was a real 60's radical I gather, but she likes being rich.

Al Adab| 1.20.10 @ 10:07AM

Alec Baldwin once threatened (promised) to leave the country if Bush was elected. You can always count on these people.

We spend way too much time and energy taking the movies, and the actors, seriously. Celebrity hardly imparts superior knowledge.

Seek| 1.20.10 @ 12:14PM

You can count on "the Sixties" to serve as an eternal lightining rod for malcontents who don't know the first thing about cinema, music or any other artistic expression. If you're going to denounce "It's Complicated," at least go see it first. It's very simple.

MisterB| 1.20.10 @ 12:36PM

I haven't seen the film, but I have seen the TV ads for the movie. I'm in the same general age bracket (56) and my immediate reaction was that these people were TOO OLD to be behaving like that. At their ages their sex drive is lower and their maturity should be higher. It's sad that mature people would be acting that way. Meryl Streep sure does combine 'serious' movies with low brow commercial fare.

Roughcoat| 1.20.10 @ 1:15PM

Has there ever been an instance of popular culture not being debased? What would a not-debased popular culture look like? If a popular culture isn't debased, what's the difference between popular culture and high culture?

Genuinely interested in learning about this. Any comments?

CHummel| 1.20.10 @ 4:01PM

A very, very, very far cry from Sophie's choice, eh? Proof that Meryl Streep can act decently and Alec Baldwin cannot. Steve Martin does both.

LauraHollis| 1.20.10 @ 11:26PM

I saw "It's Complicated," and was hopeful about the original premise, but disappointed in the execution and the conclusion.

That a middle-aged man could discover that his middle-aged wife and the mother of his children actually WAS the love of his life? I loved that.

That his ex-wife might be able to see past his faults and infidelity and love him again - or anyway? What a concept.

But it just fell flat after that. First, there's something ridiculous about a bunch of 50-something women tittering over the word "vagina." ESPECIALLY in our era. (Though some of the lines in those scenes were funny.)

Second, although I love Steve Martin normally, his character in this film comes across as so feminized as to be inert sexually. Sorry, but if that's what you want, just get a dog.

Third, I was disturbed by the callousness of the story toward the second wife's child, Pedro. Yes, he's a brat, but he has had no father other than Alec Baldwin's character, and the scene where the sleeping little boy clings to Jake's hand tore my heart out. It made it very hard to cheer when Jake announces to Jane, "I've left Agnes!" Yes, and he has left Pedro, too. So now he has walked out four children. Hooray.

And finally (SPOILER ALERT!), what could have been a truly complicated exploration of love and forgiveness and redemption just dissolved into the Hollywood pap about two people who "love each other but just can't live together," and their kids who are totally OK with that, and their lack of regrets for anything that happened.

PLEASE.

There's a scene toward the very end of the film when Streep's and Baldwin's characters are sitting on the bench in front of her home, reflecting over their lives together - and apart - and admitting their respective responsibility. They are at peace with each other.

And at that moment, what struck me so powerfully was that, these two people were STILL married. That THIS was what thirty years of marriage should look like.

One of the hugest holes in our culture today is the complete lack of representations we have of long-term marriages - the early bliss, the fatigue of young children and worry about older ones, the faults you think you cannot stand another minute, the near-breaking points -- and then the slower, calmer, quieter time when you realize you've made it through all of that, and suddenly, the love you have for each other is still there, but stronger and better.

The last movie I saw that celebrated anything like that was the Pixar film, "UP" (a GREAT film, by the way), and I can't think of another one in recent years.

As a result, we no longer inspire young people to marry, we define "soul mate" as someone you love - until you don't, and marriage as something you do until you get sick of each other, and then you spend tens of thousands of dollars on a divorce attorney, and God-knows-how-much more on therapy for you and your kids.

"It's Complicated" could have reflected the resilience of real love, and the ties that family and children have on two people - even two people who have hurt each other in the past.

Instead, it fell back on the stereotype of the divorce as a cure-all. Sad.

roadmaster| 1.21.10 @ 4:47PM

Thank you, Laura. Your comment is bwtter than the article.

All of the of really long term couples we know tell us the same thing; if you can hold on through the bad times, the good times just keep getting better.

I suppose I was ruined for happy matrimony by growing up in the 50's & 60's and buying into all of the crap - but a long series of one night stands was becoming boring. I managed to avoid it completely until almost 40, but she was a sick, twisted "liberal" and I was a closet conservative - oil and water/splitsville after almost 5 years of torture...

Almost ten years later I reconnected with a sweet girl I'd fallen in love at first sight in the 6th grade. Our marriage was wonderful - I'd gone from the worst possible partner to the best. Unfortunately she died, but lucky for me she taught me how to love her, and love God.

My current wife and have a few "growth opportunities" but each of us knew what we were looking for and found most of our requirements in one another.

The majority of our friends are our age and older (I'm 60) and all are long term marrieds. One thing they have in common is their respect, trust and sacrifice for one another, and they're also Christians.

roadmaster| 1.21.10 @ 4:49PM

bwtter? sorry.

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