C'est compliqué

"It's Complicated" is pretty simple, actually. Successful Californian food store owner Meryl Streep has been happily divorced from her former husband Alex Baldwin for the last ten years, but on a trip to New York to attend their son's graduation, she starts an affair with him. He happens to have re-married, to a younger woman, while she becomes involved with her architect Steve Martin. Will Meryl and Alec get back together again, or will she set off into the sunset with Steve. ​What will the children think? Do we care?

Well, not a lot. The lifestyle depicted is one in which everything is perfect, especially the cast's complexions. There are no human imperfections depicted, unless you count lust. All the characters, with the partial exception of Meryl, are stereotypes – people from Advertising land. In real life things are much more complicated.

That said, this is a superior piece of its type and it passes the watch test (I didn't look at my watch while viewing it). True, I could watch Meryl reading the phone book, and yes the dialogue was witty and the set pieces funny, and I had some guilty enjoyment from all the affluence. But really it was all too sweet, like Meryl's chocolate cake. Alex Baldwin does a passable LA lawyer while Steve Martin seems to be in the wrong movie.