JamesG
12-26-2009, 08:28 AM
Movie Reviews: It’s Complicated
Like other Nancy Meyers-directed movies (Something's Gotta Give, What Women Want, The Holiday), It's Complicated's target audience is women over 40 -- an underserved market to be sure, but one that has managed to buy up a lot of movie tickets.
The Chicago Sun-Times's Roger Ebert, who suggests that It's Complicated will likely draw a big crowd from "gal pals taking a movie break after returning Christmas presents," notes that "not everybody is in a mood for Avatar."
But Lou Lumenick in the New York Post suggests that the movie is really "Avatar for women of a certain age, with blond highlights replacing blue skin."
Manohla Dargis in the New York Times, who has chastised Hollywood's major studios for overlooking female directors, heaps much praise on Meyers, while at the same time observing that her "vision can be maddeningly narrow and not only because her movies take place in cosseted, largely white worlds where the help is discreetly out of view."
Most of the critics reviewing It's Complicated are women and at times sound as if they're leading a cheering section.
For example, Linda Barnard writes in the Toronto Star: "A rarity among Hollywood movies, where senior sex is usually either an aberration or a punchline, It's Complicated really isn't. It's just entertaining. Let's hope the studios are listening."
Lisa Kennedy in the Denver Post agrees, writing, "Making us laugh in telling ways, especially in a time-worn genre like the romantic comedy, can be tough. There's a reason for the saying 'Death is easy, comedy is hard.'"
Most male critics seem equally charmed.
"It's Complicated isn't; it's pretty simple," writes Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune. "It's simply a good time, a relatively adult and easygoing conveyance for three ace performers of a certain age, working through a few comic machinations created by writer-director Nancy Meyers.
-IMDB News
Like other Nancy Meyers-directed movies (Something's Gotta Give, What Women Want, The Holiday), It's Complicated's target audience is women over 40 -- an underserved market to be sure, but one that has managed to buy up a lot of movie tickets.
The Chicago Sun-Times's Roger Ebert, who suggests that It's Complicated will likely draw a big crowd from "gal pals taking a movie break after returning Christmas presents," notes that "not everybody is in a mood for Avatar."
But Lou Lumenick in the New York Post suggests that the movie is really "Avatar for women of a certain age, with blond highlights replacing blue skin."
Manohla Dargis in the New York Times, who has chastised Hollywood's major studios for overlooking female directors, heaps much praise on Meyers, while at the same time observing that her "vision can be maddeningly narrow and not only because her movies take place in cosseted, largely white worlds where the help is discreetly out of view."
Most of the critics reviewing It's Complicated are women and at times sound as if they're leading a cheering section.
For example, Linda Barnard writes in the Toronto Star: "A rarity among Hollywood movies, where senior sex is usually either an aberration or a punchline, It's Complicated really isn't. It's just entertaining. Let's hope the studios are listening."
Lisa Kennedy in the Denver Post agrees, writing, "Making us laugh in telling ways, especially in a time-worn genre like the romantic comedy, can be tough. There's a reason for the saying 'Death is easy, comedy is hard.'"
Most male critics seem equally charmed.
"It's Complicated isn't; it's pretty simple," writes Michael Phillips in the Chicago Tribune. "It's simply a good time, a relatively adult and easygoing conveyance for three ace performers of a certain age, working through a few comic machinations created by writer-director Nancy Meyers.
-IMDB News