Review: It’s Complicated Blu-ray

STUDIO: Universal | DIRECTOR: Nancy Meyers | CAST: Meryl Streep, Alec Baldin, Steve Martin, Lake Bell
RELEASE DATE: 4/27/2010 | PRICE: DVD $29.98, Blu-ray $36.98
BONUSES: commentary, featurette, Pocket Blu
SPECS: R | 121 min. | romantic comedy | 1.85:1 | DTS-HD | English, Spanish and French subtitles

RATINGS (out of 5 dishes): Movie | Audio | Video | Overall

Romantic comedy hit It’s Complicated is all about concept: A woman who’s finally starting to move on with her life 10 years after divorce, has an affair with her former husband, who’s now married to the much younger woman he left her for. Meryl Streep plays the divorcee who’s now the other woman, and Alec Baldwin is her former husband/new lover. And Steve Martin is in there too as Streep’s new potential love interest if she can just figure out what she’s doing with her ex-husband, although Martin’s performance is much more restrained than usual.

Written and directed by Nancy Meyers, it’s a sumptious movie, with Streep living in a gorgeous house surrounded by flowers and cooking up delicious-looking roasts, pasta salads and chocolate croissants, all filmed to accentuate the beautiful. And the movie’s family, even though torn apart by divorce, are still obviously a loving family, with the three grown children curling up together in bed like kids when their parents adultry comes out. It’s similar to Meyers’ older films Something’s Gotta Give and, as just writer, both Father of the Bride movies.

The acting is fine all around, and the movie has some touching moments and plenty of laughs come out of the sticky stituation, such as a naked Baldwin on webcam. At times, the pretty visuals drag a bit as we wait for the next set of laughs, but there’s enough of a story to keep viewers interested in what will happen next.

These visuals and the fun soundtrack, which includes Elton John among other greats, are accentuated in the Blu-ray. Streep’s colorful flowers and ripe tomatoes in her garden look good enough to pick off the screen.

The special features package is small, just a filmmakers commentary and a making-of featurette. But the featurette is missable, as the first half is just Streep, Baldwin, Meyers and others recapping the plot of the movie between scenes from the film and the second half is filled with the actors saying genius each other are. (Note to DVD producers: The following words should be banned from making-of featurettes: Genius, unique talent, amazing, incredible…)

The Blu-ray also has Universal’s Pocket Blu, which turns viewers iPhones into remote controls (and is kinda annoying when it shows up before you even watch the movie), but between this and the special features, the movie is the disc’s showcase. That’s ok, because it’s an unoffensive laugher, and the theater goers who took the film to $112.7 million in box office receipts can’t be wrong.

Buy or Rent It’s Complicated
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