Fridae

It’s simple, really. Hollywood doesn’t have the talent for making romantic comedies in this day and age. It has neither the acting talent (so please stop bombarding us with romcoms that are as bad and unoriginal as their poster art!), writing talent (I’m so unfriending all of you who liked Adam Sandler’s neo-romcoms), nor directorial talent. Well – aside from Nancy Myers, who makes great romantic comedies that resemble nothing that Hollywood can deliver.

Part of the charm of Nancy Meyers is her ability to make very unconventional romantic comedies. You imagine her saying, “Jack Black as a leading man in The Holiday? No problem! Why don’t we cram in two love stories at the same time?” And for her 2009 act, Meyers revisits her senior citizen romcom concept from Something’s Gotta Give, we suspect to outdo her previous effort.

This time round, Meryl Streep is a divorced 50-something who finds herself having an affair with her ex-husband (played by a jovially chubby Alec Baldwin) while being wooed by an ardent Steve Martin. It’s a very perverse, so wrong, yet it’s so right premise: the best revenge for a First Wife is to have an affair with Mr Ex – to be the other woman’s other woman, and relishing every naughty moment of it.

Before you realise what Meyers has done, she would have had you laughing so hard and buying into a romantic comedy involving seniors. Instead of being grotesque or embarrassing, Meyers shows that an affair between divorcees or people in their 50s falling in love with each other can be very sexy, liberating and fun.

It’s Complicated (like all her other efforts) took 2 years to write, produce, direct and edit to completion, and the effort shows. While the premise is certainly complicated, audacious and potentially offensive, Nancy Meyers makes it seem so easy to go down.