**1/2 (out of ****)
Starring Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, Keanu Reeves, Frances McDormand, and Amanda Peet
Directed & written by Nancy Meyer
2003
117 min PG13
Don Giovanni is said to have seduced a thousand women because he was afraid of being rejected by one. The Don Giovanni in “Something’s Gotta Give” is played by Jack Nicholson as a man who has made it all the way into, through, and out of middle-age without having to compromise his lifestyle. But, as happens to all of us, he and the younger generation finally just don’t understand enough of each other for this to keep working. Into his life steps the playwright mother (Diane Keaton) of his latest attempted conquest (Amanda Peet), over a long weekend in the Hamptons. A contest of wills ensues, not just between the promiscuous player and the ballsy, tightly-wound playwright, but inside each of them as well. He wonders, should I change my ways, or am I too old? If I leap from the land of the flirt, will the land of commitment really catch my fall? She wonders, do I dare let down my carefully-constructed guard for this buffoon, on the slim hope that he has changed?
I like this set-up, but I’m not going to lie. There’s a lot of “Something’s Gotta Give,” large swaths of conversation, that I just didn’t understand. When the movie was over I turned to my wife and said to her, “you have two X chromosomes, can you translate this for me?” But she was just as confused when it came to a lot of the dialogue. We had an idea what all that talking was moving toward, because we knew, in broad strokes, what was happening. But we couldn’t be sure when it came to all that chatter. This might not be to the movie’s discredit. Maybe my wife and I are simply not old enough to fully comprehend all the talk that goes into a December-December romance. At one point, Diane and Jack are out on a cold sidewalk, and she’s talking and talking and talking, and when he finally responds, all he can say is “I don’t know how to be a good boyfriend.” I didn’t understand half of what she said, but I knew exactly from where he was coming.
But…I’m still not sure. The Wife and I just watched “Tokyo Story” a week or two ago and were all wet-eyed by the end. I think we understood the lion’s share of what the geezers were up to, and the septuagenarian protagonist of Kurosawa’s “Ikiru” is not nearly as mystifying as some of Diane Keaton’s dialogue.
Generational gaps aside, there are aspects of “Something’s Gotta Give” that I can bitch and moan about without remorse. The movie is the work of writer-director Nancy Meyer, whose “What Women Want” is about characters ruled not so much by their genitals as by sexist stereotypes about their genitals. I enjoyed “Something’s Gotta Give” more, but it is told in the same style of constant cutting and loud pop music. Even the actors are infected by this spirit of jitteriness; they are constantly mugging, making faces for the camera, raising eyebrows, giggling in mid-sentence, making cute hand gestures, and otherwise constantly behaving as if they are still in the trailer and not the real movie. There’s also a lot of behavior that can be summed up by “Do you like me? Circle ‘yes’ or ‘no,’” like the notes girls would sneak to guys in junior high.
But, as I said before, this is a fascinating set-up, and there are several scenes that live up to it. Jack and Diane, stranded at Diane’s beach-house, are having a friendly, possibly romantic conversation when the daughter strolls in and ruins everything for them. She is youthfully urgent, loud, and self-important, and Jack and Diane stare at each other while she talks. There’s no lesson they can teach her; she must simply have to grow out of it on her own, which is humiliating for Jack and depressing for Diane, who has slowly opened to him. As Diane’s little sister, the great and adorable Frances McDormand criticizes the double-standards of aging, about how old men can still be flirtatious bachelors, but an old single woman is considered a failure. The movie also gets a lot of mileage out of Jack and Diane needing eyeglasses, Viagra, and tons of pills.
Then there’s the character played by Keanu Reeves, the young doctor who is initially attracted to Diane’s reputation as a playwright, and then Diane herself. He is handsome, likable, and intelligent—and there’s something so sweet about how he is polite to everyone, even the older women, and how the older women seem unaccustomed to being treated so well. He is genial and almost entirely uncomplicated, which makes me wonder if we’re supposed to think of him as a full-blooded character or just a rhetorical device in the movie’s examination of double-standards when it comes to trans-generational romance. If the latter is the case, then is Meyer implying that women who go for older men are brainless, snotty bimbos like Amanda Peet, while men who go for older women are refined, dashing, and tasteful, like Keanu’s physician?
But…what are Diane and Jack saying to each other? Maybe I should wait to see “Something’s Gotta Give” again until I’m about the age of my parents. Then I might understand it. Although I don’t mean it this way, describing a movie as “something your parents might like” is often used as a heavy criticism or death sentence. But that’s just stupid. Certainly calling a painting or a book or a symphony “something your parents might like” is not as damning as describing a movie in the same way. Nancy Meyer has made what I’m pretty sure is a romantic comedy for grown-ups and has even brought it to the multiplex, and I admire her courage. I’m just not so sure I got enough of the movie to admire it or not.
Finished December 24th, 2003
Copyright © 2003 Friday & Saturday Night
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