Trailer review: Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin star in ‘It’s Complicated’
Last week I made a rare visit to the cinema, and was immediately reminded precisely why my trips are so few and far between. Although I had successfully evaded the Regal ‘First Look’ at sundry pieces of cinematic ordure sliding down the pipeline, no sooner was I sitting comfortably than I was subjected to one of the vilest obscenities I have ever beheld. I am referring, of course, to the trailer for the upcoming, inconceivably stomach-twirling romantic ‘comedy’ It’s Complicated, which stars Alec Baldwin and Meryl Streep as an insufferably smug divorced couple who start having an affair with each other after they have both supposedly found new love with someone else.
Needless to say, the trailer was entirely chuckle-free. But that only scratches the surface of the horror I witnessed unfolding on the big screen. Indeed, many profound philosophical and even theological questions raced through my mind as I tried to come to grips with what I was seeing. EG-
How did this infinite chain of wrongness make it from concept to general release?
Why didn’t somebody stop them- a producer, an executive, an accountant, anyone?
Which lunatic thought that what the world wants to see is the reptilian Baldwin macking on the formerly serious actress Streep?
Since when was Alec Baldwin leading man material again?
Didn’t Diane Keaton make this film a few years ago?
Is this related to Denise Richards’ reality show?
How old is Meryl Streep anyway and is it true that she got her start in DW Griffiths’ Broken Blossoms?
Ultimately however, as I writhed in agony in my seat, waiting for the ordeal to finish I found myself contemplating the greatest conundrum of all:
Why does God allow good people to suffer?
Not that I’m identifying myself as exceptionally good, you understand. Kindler, gentler people than me will be gulled into watching this atrocity and all they will get from it is lost money, wasted time and a lingering sense of violation, of filthy fingerprints on their souls that cannot be washed away. Perhaps they will be so traumatized that they shall recall the words of Job, that long-suffering servant of God when he cried aloud (in chapter 3, verse 2): ‘Let the day perish wherein I was born, and the night wherein it was said: ‘A man-child is brought forth.’
Why, O Lord, why?
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How can you say that! The film looks amazing and the chemistry between Meryl and Alec is amazing. The film will be really good. And why is it a disgusting film??? Because it has older people in it. That is what Nancy Meyers is so good at. She is making the film more realistic. Just because people get older it doesn’t mean they dont have affairs. And Meryl Streep is great in comedys. Trust me, I’m a massive fan. Have you seen prime/she devil/death becomes her. And the trailer is funny, it has it’s laughable moments.
So don’t say anything about Meryl’s films dude!
I’ve got nothing against old people, Sophie- I plan to be old myself one day. I’m not even all that anti-Streep. It’s the work of the devil (and also Alec Baldwin) I abhor… and this film is clearly a diabolical plot.
I know people who have worked on it as crew. They had a lot to say about it, from their position behind the camera. It is a diabolical plot: there’s no other explanation why Nancy Myers is allowed to make movies at all. Nothing good will ever come of it. Example: What Women Want, easily the worst movie ever. Ever.
(Disclaimer: I abhor romantic comedies in all their permutations anyway. My estrogen must be some rare strain.)
I’m a bit jealous of your friends, Olga. I would like very much to see up close how something so horrible gets made.
They are willing to tell you all about it as long as you keep them as “unnamed sources.”
I know people who have worked on it as crew. They had a lot to say about it, from their position behind the camera. It is a diabolical plot: there’s no other explanation why Nancy Myers is allowed to make movies at all. Nothing good will ever come of it.
While watching “It’s Complicated,” I was shocked to see Baldwin morph into a reptilian for a split second. (I’m not kidding!) Has anyone else seen this bizarre transition? It was NOT my imagination. (This was at the movie theater–not my TV.
Are you sure you did not witness a reptilian briefly morphing into ‘Alec Baldwin’?
For the sake of full disclosure–it seems critical that Chris Bosh’s 2-week unreality camera crew have public access to my life although it bears no relevance to his impending immigration pour le saison de menage a trois in sunny Florida:
For the first time in months we rented movies, and I chose from our local 1-dollar DVD drop box, DK’s fav It’s Complicated and Youth In Revolt (choosing only by the cover displays no less!).
Yes, DK’s points are well taken (as well as Sophie’s and I do pity the crew, yes I do, who had to stand around beautiful Santa Barbara and point equipment at Alec Baldwin), and yet long removed from this world of Hollywood comedy, we watched the It’s C. first and laughed a lot! Kind of like cathartic, just what the doctor ordered laughter…
But then again, we don’t have TV, stereo, or much else in a very quiet small town in the summer. There was one early scene where I feared the worst, the 50ish women gathering to nibble and discuss their lives and dismal prospects for love (I very much prefer my own 40ish clandestine nibbling here, alone with pretzels or ice cream or my own dismal prospects).
Youth in Revolt was more intriguing I suppose and I’ve always been a sucker for pseudo-Indy teen-angst films, and then the topper is a week later, at this point positively addicted to the cinema of Hollywood comedy, I chose Four Christmases.
If there is a shared message of all three films, it seems to be that love is still possible in an age of plentiful and easy-access divorce and that divorce can be a funny topic too, not some taboo (“oh, that’s so awful, what those poor children or poor mother had to go through,” etc.). And also, that parents can be superfreaky, strange and scary people (alas, another trap we fall into, parenting). Then, I realized that perhaps my favorite comedy, The Daytrippers, has the same themes. And most of Woody Allen as well.
Four Christmases was okay, no doubt better than what 4 Kwanzas or 4 Hannukahs would have been, but I did begin to get a bit burnt out on Hollywood comedies.
Will I succumb once more to the DVD drop box and rent that Demi Moore–Parker Posey interlude with “Tears” in the title? Wouldn’t Chris Bosh’s camera crew like to know? No? Oh. Well, I suppose renting from the drop box is less exhausting than winning the NBA title.
nice :)