Hey folks, Harry here... Mr. Beaks stood me up in my hotel room in New York recently. Used to... whenever I went to New York, I could count on a fling with Mr Beaks, but now.. now he lives in L.A. with Moriarty... Our love has died. Sniffle. Here you'll see Beaks conjure the memory of Keaton from MANHATTAN and ANNIE HALL... You'll see him yearn for a 50-minute hour... and much much more... here ya go...
SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE (w. & d. Nancy Meyers)
Fresh off of his return to acting in last year’s slightly overrated, but still better than average ABOUT SCHMIDT, Jack Nicholson is back in movie star mode as Harry Langer, a swingin’ sixty-three year old bachelor who, when he’s not overseeing his wildly lucrative hip-hop record label, Drive-By Records, gallivants about town with beautiful women half his age. His latest quarry is Marin Barry (Amanda Peet), the only daughter of well-to-do playwright (a near-oxymoron in this day and age) Erica Barry, played with reliable neurotic feistiness by Diane Keaton. When Marin takes her caddish older lover out for a week long vacation at her mother’s gorgeous, sumptuously appointed Hamptons beach house, it’s only a matter of time before the bitter, divorced Erica unexpectedly shows up to catch the pair in a compromising position; thus, setting in motion a door slamming, couple swapping, intergenerational farce that promises to be one for the ages.
The most enticing element of Nancy Meyer’s SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE is how Langer represents the closest approximation of Nicholson’s public persona of any character he’s ever played, suggesting that the film might possibly end up being a good-natured reckoning for his bad boy past. If only Meyers had something so conventional on her mind. Formerly one-half of a writing team with her now ex-husband Charles Shyer, Meyers’s career has been built on her knack for developing solid premises for top-flight comedic talent, which has resulted in big hits for Goldie Hawn (PRIVATE BENJAMIN), Steve Martin (FATHER OF THE BRIDE) and Ms. Keaton (BABY BOOM). But all of this was done in tandem with Shyer. SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE represents her first solo scripting effort (she was only credited as director on WHAT WOMEN WANT), and, rather than rely on what’s served her well thus far, she reaches for something more: a heartfelt meditation on commitment and getting old.
What must’ve seemed thoughtful and sincere on the page unfortunately comes off as shallow and indulgent on the screen. This is filmed therapy that makes one pine for the fifty-minute hour. Worse, the narrative lurches and stalls like a student driver trying to learn a stick-shift, while the gags aren’t particularly funny. Part of the problem is that she’s written the script in a strangely theatrical manner, preferring to unload lots of backstory through plodding expository dialogue. A good deal of this is imparted through an early, enervating dinner table scene where Langer and Erica spar, while Marin winces and Erica’s sister, Zoe (Frances McDormand), chimes in with helpful observations intended to provide psychological depth and even *more* backstory. There’s nothing wrong with being talky, but it’d be nice if Meyers would get the plot moving before she tries to be Wendy Wasserstein.
Finally, something happens. Langer is felled by a heart attack just as he’s about to consummate his empty fling with Marin. The three women rush him to the hospital where he is attended to by a dashing doctor named Julian (Keanu Reeves), who just happens to be a huge fan of Erica’s plays. Though Erica is oblivious, Marin and Zoe pick up on what the out-of-practice writer can’t see; Julian is hot for her.
Happily, Erica will be seeing much more of Julian, as the doctor orders that Langer not make the trip back to Manhattan until he is fully recovered. This means plenty of time for Langer and Erica to make like Oscar and Felix, replete with tired cigar gag. But as their swords continue to cross, a funny thing happens; Nicholson and Keaton, in their first onscreen pairing since REDS, slowly begin to enliven their limp material, imbuing their characters with genuine feelings of frailty, fear and lust, which simmer at the core of all their encounters until they predictably boil over into a wild night of passion. The actual moment of their coupling is an absolute keeper; it’s a master class in facial expressions buoyed by one of the film’s few witty exchanges. At last, the film has a pulse. In fact, the middle section of the movie is so much fun, one is tempted to forgive Meyers’s numerous missteps and just give in to the actors’ enthusiasm.
That actually would’ve been good advice for the writer as well, but she trips up on the ensuing complications that ultimately tear the couple apart. Clearly at a loss as to how she should end the film, her solution appears to have been to simply keep writing until she gets there, resulting in enough piled-on false climaxes and mini-epiphanies to make one nostalgic for I LOVE TROUBLE. When Erica winds up writing a hit play based on her heartbreaking affair with Langer, it feels like wishful thinking on the part of Meyers. But while there’s little doubt that SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE could’ve been aided by some judicious editing, its severest flaws are systematic.
It’s a shame, too, because Keaton hasn’t been this good in ages. As the hardened, love-shy Erica gradually melts under Langer’s irresistible charm, the actress positively glows in a way that recalls her iconic turns in ANNIE HALL and MANHATTAN. Until she’s reduced to a disheartening spectacle of prolonged wailing as Erica fights through her painful memories in a bizarre display of power writing, Keaton deftly hits her character’s extreme emotional highs and lows without breaking a sweat. Sure, she’s been doing the unhinged older woman thing for years, but there’s a soulfulness in her work here that’s been missing for quite some time. Perhaps she just needed an old dog like Nicholson to bring it out of her. If that’s the case, a re-teaming is absolutely in order, though it would be nice if they could work from an actual script next time, rather than a psychiatrist’s note pad.
Faithfully submitted,
