It’s not complicated at all, really. While living in separated harmony, Kate (Streep) and her ex-husband Jake (Baldwin) arrive in New York for their son’s graduation, get drunk, and end up in bed together for the first time in ten years.
The problem is that Jake is now married to Agness (Lake Bell), a controlling nymphette who came with one horrid brat and is desperate for another. And, with the last of their three children having only just flown the coop, Kate has never really tasted the single life.
Still, they continue the affair back in California. But will Kate fall for Jake’s lewd and lardy charms once again, or is there hope for Adam (Martin), the thoroughly nice divorcee who is redesigning her kitchen?
Quite why writer-director Meyers' script was deemed worthy of a Golden Globe nomination is a mystery, since every amusing situation – a marijuana-stoked party experience; an embarrassing webcam episode - is tempered by a moment of toe-curling mawkishness and undertones so false you could use them as dentures.
From patisserie proprietor Kate and lawyer Jake to their slappably spoilt kids and the conveniently awful Agness, everyone is rich, successful, and blissfully unaware of the real meaning of hardship.
So there’s no danger of any permanent harm being done. Except, perhaps, to the audience’s intelligence.
“That looks amazing,” drools Adam as Kate rustles up a ham and cheese toastie. “It’s called ‘croque monsieur’ – I learned how to make it in Paris ,” she informs him. Just wait til she brings out the vol-au-vents and Ferrero Rochers, sunshine.
Luckily, the more recognisable members of the cast gather up any nuggets of truth and genuine sentiment to make the patronising more palatable.
Streep is on a comedy roll after Mamma Mia! and Julie & Julia, while John Krasinski (of The Office [US] and Away We Go) lends agreeable support as Jake and Kate’s future son-in-law. Martin also goes some way to atoning for the recent atrocities he’s committed in the name of Clouseau.
And Baldwin, apparently at peace with his inexorable transformation into William Shatner, riffs pleasingly on his 30 Rock persona to flesh out what could have been a two-dimensional rogue.
Following the crime to comedy that was The Holiday, this is a marked improvement from Meyers.
But while making a few pithy observations about the mid-life condition, it's no more complicated - or profound - than a racy issue of Hello!
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