Word: likelies
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...would like to say that writer/director Nancy Meyers' film is cause for celebration, but it's a bit more complicated than that. Meyers has written some astute scenes about aging and regret, heartbreak and hope. In the role of a successful businesswoman - Jane owns and operates an upscale bakery/café - who finds herself in the unlikely position of having an affair with her ex-husband, Streep is radiant, funny and endearingly vulnerable...
Moreover, Jake, who seems like such a cheery rogue in all the film's trailers, is so odious that the affair makes little sense. It's not Baldwin's fault; he's good at being bad, and Jake's awfulness does lend itself to comedy of the oh-no-he-didn't variety. "Home!" Jake proclaims, as he lies in bed with Jane after their first sexual encounter in a decade. This would be sweet, if he weren't saying it as he's clapping his hand over her groin with all the subtlety of a baseball player adjusting...
...hearing her husband admit he made a mistake. The second wife, Agness (Lake Bell), is a huge disappointment: temperamental, with "a big job," a demanding child who diminishes Stepdad Jake every chance he gets, as well as a feverish desire to get pregnant again. Jake wants to flee, and like a wandering dog he just wants to get back home again...
...Complicated is positioned more as a which-guy-will-she-choose story, and thanks to Jake's clear-cut case of permanent jerkitis, there's not a lot of dramatic tension to feed that plot line. Men are babies, Meyers is telling us, and only a humble one like Adam, who was cuckolded by his ex-wife, is really worthy of any successful, independent woman's while. Speaking of Adam, you know how he and Jane met? He's the architect on her remodel. Apparently Jane needs a bigger kitchen. All those cake plates of hers must be feeling squeezed...
...contentment during a recent speechmaking swing through Bangkok. Two Polynesian-style tattoos designed by the 68-year-old himself curved from an exposed wrist and sockless calve. Holding court within the quaintly colonial Authors' Wing of Bangkok's Oriental Hotel, the inveterate travel writer and novelist came off less like some haughty descendant of Conrad or Maugham and more an enthusiastic traveling salesman on a first tour of the exotic East...