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Something's Gotta Give December 14, 2003 |
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Too often in the movies do we see sex and “romance” dumbed down and simplified for an audience expecting familiarity and pleasant characters that meet cute, fall in love, fall out of love through a misunderstanding, and finally clinch back in an epilogue of tacky sweetness and cloying over-the-top sentimentality. Most of the time romance films simply just don’t work, precisely because of the fact that that familiarity and sap doesn’t cut it anymore, that is, with people who grow tired of seeing it over and over. When done right, a romantic comedy can be charming and offer a change of pace from the world’s cynicism and violence we get daily on TV, and in most Hollywood blockbusters, and when done to perfection, they can actually be profound and make you forget about the improbability of it all. In, “Something’s Gotta Give”, we’ve seen it all before, but somehow, thanks to two strong lead performances by well-known and generally likeable stars, it works better than most. It is a picture quite plainly about a pair of very opposite people who meet under strange circumstances, hate each other at first, begin to like each other along the way, and so on and so forth, to where you can see it heading a mile a way. It’s not that dense, but runs along at a good pace, with funny dialogue and a premise not too fantastical to agree with, but at that, it is very, very familiar, and if you want to be a stickler for originality you could say that there isn’t much difference between it and a thousand teenage comedies pumped out yearly from the Hollywood scrap heap of lame screenplays. But the thing of it is, and maybe why I think it ultimately works as a satisfying little bonbon, despite obvious predictability and some silly sugar-coated corniness, is that it’s a romance about two people in the latter stages of life, primarily post-55. Yes, there are also some younger actors (Keanu Reeves and Amanda Peet in supporting roles), but even they fall for the older stars, and it is kind of refreshing to see two famous actors, some would say even sex symbols in their prime days (the ‘70’s) unashamed about aging, feelings, and even nudity, when played either for laughs or tenderness. The two actors I’m talking about, of course, are Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, two icons of modern day cinema, two Oscar winners, and two talented professionals who relished working opposite each other again. There are scenes that could have been embarrassing beyond belief, but in the hands of these two stars, who we’ve cherished for years (it’s especially nice to see Keaton radiant again, in a performance of great charm and goofy wit, the kind that won over critics and Oscar voters alike in 1977 as Annie Hall), even the clunky parts are comfortable and easy to swallow. Let’s take an early scene for example, as that is where the film contains most of the pure comedy, before the machinations of the romance sets in. Jack plays Harry Sanborn, a hound dog of a lothario of a cad who is seeing the daughter of Keaton’s Erica Barry, a playwright and bitter post-menopausal divorcee who has gone cold from loneliness. He has just had a mild heart attack in Erica’s posh Hampton’s beachfront mansion, and they are all gathered at the hospital to get the diagnosis, even though she has only just met the guy and her first impressions are that he’s a boob, one of these older guys who thinks they are god’s gift to women (under 30 anyway), and she is right, but he deserves a hospital visit anyway. So, a few minutes into the sequence, after a forced bit about not mixing Viagra and Nitroglycerin, out busts Jack in his hospital gown, doped up on sedatives, with his bare behind flapping in the breeze. The ladies are shocked and tickled, and as he stumbles to Erica’s body in a haze, she quips, “even unconscious he’s a letch.” It seems like a throwaway moment, an early scene in the first act that further establishes how much she doesn’t like him, but actually it’s a very sweet moment, with Harry hung out to dry (literally), vulnerable, and Erica only half-heartedly disengaging in his stupor-induced advances. It’s only a matter of time before they’re in love, even Mr. Magoo could see it. If anything, the moment is a sign of things to come, as Harry and Erica are forced to live together for a week, alone, while Harry recuperates and she struggles to find inspiration for the new play she is writing. All is pretty testy at first, and indeed, all is fair in love and war, so now that we’ve seen Jack’s naked bottom, the roles are reversed, and it is time for Harry to accidentally see Erica in the buff, in another moment that could have been embarrassing, but turned out funny when handled by two pro’s. From the two nude scenes on, roughly the middle portion of the picture, the mood is surprisingly sweet, as the two begin to realize that they have more in common than they originally thought, such as the enjoyment of long walks on the beach, and making pancakes at three in the morning in their pajama’s. Seriously though, if you can’t fall in love while making pancakes, than something’s gotta give. Get it? Not to subtle, I know, but when dealing with fluff like this, albeit enjoyable fluff, it is best to forgo any serious rational thought and just let the two leads sparkle, which, as their characters begin the arduous process of falling in and out of love in their 60’s, they do just that, in performances both comical and touching. Nicholson, for his part, is only playing a variation on his own persona, but there are a few scenes where, feeling the after effects of a life-altering episode, he has to shed a tear or two and break that classic ironic smirk of his. “I’m 63-years-old, “he says, “and I’m in love for the first time in my life,” which sounds like something his character in “As Good as it Gets” may have said, but here he’s in Paris, and only slightly neurotic, not full blown crazy. For sure, the romance near the end is cloying, and nothing in it quite produces the punch Nicholson gave in the final shot of last year’s great, funny and sad “About Schmidt” (where, upon seeing a hand drawn picture sent to him by N’dugu, his little sponsor child in Africa, his Warren Schmidt wept, in a shattering close up, and was happy for the first time in the whole picture) but there is something about his face, the eyebrows and smile especially, that can make even the most familiar scenarios seem charming and forgivable. And to her credit as well, playing off of Jack’s famous mannerisms, Keaton delivers one of her best performances. Certainly the character isn’t as deep as Annie Hall, and in a way the film tries to emulate Woody Allen’s classic a little (especially when the events of the story make for the basis of the characters play, ala Alvie Singer’s revelatory play at the end of the ’77 film) but Keaton invests a lot into portraying Erica as a lonely but proud women, who is easily hurt, and just as easily vulnerable to fall for her complete opposite. “I’m like the dumb girl who doesn’t get it, she says in questioning her feelings, “I’ve never been the dumb girl before, and I don’t like it.” The film’s writer and director, Nancy Myers (who wrote for Keaton before in ‘87’s “Baby Boom”), isn’t shy about sentiment, and having the finale take place under the moon in Paris is a well worn cliché, yet, in creating two well rounded lead characters, with problems both sexual and psychological (i.e., they don’t handle getting old too well) she has fashioned her film in the mold of the Hollywood romantic comedy classics of Cukor and Stevens, and it is all the more enjoyable because of it. Nicholson and Keaton may not exactly be Grant and Hepburn, Stewart and Arthur, and Myers is hardly Preston Sturges, but their “Something’s Gotta Give” is, follow me there, something you’ve gotta give into. by Adam Suraf “Something’s Gotta Give” is playing at the Movieplex 59.
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