26 Nov - "You've gone native, and I was into that"

It's Complicated (2009)
dir. Nancy Meyers (What Women Want, 2000)

CAST
Meryl Streep - Fantastic Mr. Fox (voice) (2009)
Steve Martin - Shopgirl (2005)
Alec Baldwin - Running With Scissors (2006)
John Krasinski - Away We Go (2009)
Lake Bell - Shrek Forever After (voice) (2010)

As a young person, I don't generally like movies about older persons getting it on. But everyone likes Meryl Streep, right? And I had to pick a movie On Demand that I could watch with my stepmother (this was after All I Want for Christmas) Well, I thought Streep played a very relate-able character, even though I'm just a young pup and know nothing about the tribulations of sexagenarian (pun!!) romance.

This was probably due to the comedic assistance of John Krasinski - who I thought was totally cute in this movie even though I'd successfully watched six and a half seasons of The Office while maintaining the opinion: "I don't get what the big deal is here..." And so even though his character was entirely accessory to the plot, I really enjoyed J.K. in this movie.

My brother says that Alec Baldwin's been riding one successful movie for twenty years (He said this was The Hunt for Red October). I can't present with confidence any counter-evidence. This movie was cute for a night in with another female person, but it good enough to redeem a career composed largely of guest appearances on Saturday Night Live.

I was reading another blog the other day, and the author was talking about something called the Bedchel Test in screenwriting in which, in order to pass, a movie must have at least two named female characters who have a conversation about something other than a man. There are two scenes in It's Complicated in which Meryl yaks it up with her gals over wine a cake. None of those ladies have names and all they talk about is Streep's character bangin' Baldwin's character. So, that fails. But even if that isn't a good portrayal of a rounded female person. I think maybe I would be more annoyed by a conversation that was irrelevant to the story (you know about me and simplicity in the plots), and since the story was about relationships I think that expecting an extraneous conversation is unrealistic, and even though this is a chintzy movie, it would be unartistic, at least for the genre we're working with here. You understand?

I dunno, this probably isn't the best movie to use to support an ideological. So I'll leave it there for now, and hopefully someday I'll watch something that will fodder a more coherent argument. Not that I'm anti-feminist, you guys.