It's Complicated

Seen at: Cinemark 16 in Ft. Collins, on January 18.

This is the second movie in a month to come out of the Awful Truth subgenre of romantic comedies about divorced or divorcing couples, after Did You Hear About the Morgans? The title of this movie seems to answer the question posed by the first movie.

You'd think I could find a suitable winner for Best Divorce Comedy out these two movies, but I'm gonna pass on that award for now. Maybe I won't give it out this year. I'll have to review the list.

Not that this movie is that bad. It's actually very pleasurable to watch Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin work opposite each other. They should consider doing it again. It was a very good formula.

The story mostly works too, except at the very end, which is very weak on resoluton. I think it is because of a fear of making the statement that divorced people, especially a father and mother of grown children, might actually get back together somehow. In the Classical era, this would have been the very essence of the story at the end (e.g. The Philadelphia Story and its remake High Society), but in the Postmodern era we are not sure what we want to say about this, at least in Movie Message Land. So instead we get a very vague ending that seems to suggest that the entire romatnic plot of movie was mostly for naught.

In particular we get no clue at all about the emotional resolution of Baldwin's character. Where is he even going at the end of the movie?

But now I'm the one asking questions.

Do I have an award for this movie. Like I said, I can't give it the Awful Truth award, but I can give it this:

Best stoner comedy: It's Complicated

Marijuana nearly takes over the movie for about fifteen minutes in Act Two. This is the kind of movie Hollywood can now make about pot in a year in which California is likely to fully legalize it.