Jane Adler’s (Meryl Streep) last little bird is finally leaving the nest, her youngest daughter Gabby (Zoe Kazan) graduated from High School and now off to college. Divorced from her gregarious slightly self-involved lawyer ex Jake (Alec Baldwin) for over a decade, this will be the first time where she’ll have to live in a completely empty home and the successful baker isn’t exactly sure how she feels about that.

Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, Alec Baldwin and Lake Bell in Universal Pictures' It's Complicated

Enter architect Adam (Steve Martin). Still stinging from the dissolution of his own marriage, the quick-witted adults find themselves striking up a beautifully intimate friendship that has the potential to blossom into more. But after Jane fools around with Jake during their son Luke’s (Hunter Parrish) graduation from college both his current marriage to the much younger Agnes (Lake Bell) and her new relationship with the guy remodeling her house are suddenly put into jeopardy. It’s a confusing mess, the whims of the human heart creating complicated melodramas no amount of life experience can easily navigate.

Nancy Meyers' (The Holiday, Something’s Gotta Give) latest romantic confection It’s Complicated is hardly a chore to sit through. Wonderfully acted by its all-star cast and filled with comedic set pieces that had me laughing out loud there was no point during this film where I was unhappy to be trapped inside of a theater. Like many of the director’s output (the dreadful final act of What Women Want notwithstanding) this one has plenty of merit, the whole thing filled with so many wonderful moments it’s easy to forgive the bits and pieces that don’t quite come together.

Which is a good thing, because in this case there are one heck of a lot of things that fail to come together. This movie is as superficially bourgeois as anything I’ve seen this year, the whole scenario about as meaningful and fulfilling as a spoonful of sugar with a maple syrup chaser. Meyer’s script is so unbelievably lightweight it’s hard to fathom why it would take her a full two hours to tell her story, so little of consequence happening I had trouble remembering any of it the moment the screening came to an end.

The last twenty minutes are particularly haggard. People do things not because they would in some reasonable facsimile of the modern world but because if they don’t the film won’t reach its already predetermined joke count. It’s all a bunch of hooey and hokum, neither of which would be much of a problem if it all wasn’t so damnably tired and cliché at the same time.

Yet in spite of these shortcomings It’s Complicated somehow manages to make it to the finish line relatively unscathed. Streep is in fine form, her comedic chops as strong as ever. Martin is also excellent, his chemistry with his Oscar-winning costar so delectable a part of me secretly hopes they’re having some sort of fling in real life. Best of all is “The Office” and Away We Go star John Krasinski, his supporting turn as Jane’s eldest daughter’s fiancé priceless. The man steals scene after scene, a bathroom moment between himself, Streep and Martin worth the price of a matinee admission all on its own.

Then there’s Baldwin. I’m not sure what else needs to be said as this point but the one time actor on the verge of superstardom (thank you The Hunt for Red October and Working Girl) has morphed into a character impresario of the first degree. He’s gone from dramas like The Cooler and The Aviator, to romances like Suburban Girl, to television sitcom titan on “30 Rock,” to comedic gold in movies like State and Main and this at seemingly the drop of the hat. He’s so good taking my eyes off of him became increasingly impossible as the film progressed, and while nothing he does is all that different than what I’ve seen him do before that still doesn’t make his work any less wondrous or entertaining.

I can’t say Meyers completely won me over, the blatant superficially of most of this rubbing me the wrong way. At this point I still can’t help but feel the director’s most cohesive and satisfying effort remains her Disney remake of The Parent Trap, that Lindsay Lohan kid flick somehow just getting better with age while the filmmaker’s more adult efforts seem to do just the opposite.

Still, It’s Complicated has enough going for it I can’t dismiss it entirely out of hand. It made me laugh enough that the smile planted on my face lasted all the way to the end, and thanks to the efforts of its sterling cast I believed they were enjoying themselves immensely even if I wasn’t always doing the same. As love affairs go the one I’m having with this movie is hardly fulfilling, but considering my romantic track record that’s pretty much par for the course. 

Film Rating: êê1/2 (out of 4)  

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