I was watching The Intern a while back and I was enjoying it. Ann Hathaway plays the adorable, successful, business owning woman so well that you'd just have to assume that Ann Hathaway is actually all of those things and more. Robert De Niro does more in his opening monologue than he has in years. As it happens, he is the intern of the piece and his wisdom and life experience trickle down to help the young professionals around him. It's breezy, it's well paced and it's fun...
Still, a couple of things stuck in my craw. There is a scene in the movie where Ann Hathaway has a few drinks with a few worker bees and gets a bit drunk. Take a look...
Really? Jack Nicholson era guys? Yes, men dressed better back then but they also controlled everything... Meyers is clearly a feminist and writes successful women very well. However, her bygone era fantasies that things (and men) were so much better "back then" seem to fly in the face of the equality that women really should have by now. Men weren't all like Robert De Niro's character in this movie. Actually, hardly any of them were... When I bring this up the reaction is generally of the "It's a fucking movie G, relax" variety. I did and, this minor quibble aside, I thoroughly enjoyed the film.
The other thing that comes to mind (as it always does with these movies) is just how rich everyone is... Now, this isn't so much a complaint as much as it is an observation. You look at any Meyers movie and everyone is fucking loaded. What Women Want, Something's Gotta Give, The Holiday, It's Complicated. All these people stink of money! To be fair, they are all in great jobs and you get the impression they worked hard to get to this point of comfort in their lives but you also get the impression that they've never known any real hardship. Again, that's just an observation but the stakes in these movies rarely seem high. I mean, if Diane Keaton (likes to write from her house in the Hamptons) had ended up with Dr. Keanu "super fucking handsome" Reeves in Something's Gotta Give instead of Jack Nicholson would you have been overly sad? If the answer to that question is yes I am genuinely worried about you. Keanu is so fucking perfect in that movie I wouldn't have been surprised if Jack had ended up going after the young doctor instead of Keaton!Something's Gotta Give, for me at least, is Nancy's best movie. Diane Keaton is an absolute delight in it. Genuinely funny, she's an irresistible mix of high intellect and infectious quirkiness. She's also the best thing in the movie. That said, Jack Nicholson doesn't phone it in either. In fact, whenever I watch the movie (which is a lot) I get the distinct impression that he's working his ass off and loving every second. They are a formidable duo and brought this excellent script to life as only they can. The moment I saw those leads and directed by Nancy Meyers I was sold. I went to see this movie with my then girlfriend and we brought our mothers because we knew they'd have fun. It is here that I think Nancy Meyers deserves a fuck-ton of credit. Her movies entertain people of all ages. Sure, casting older actors will help but there's a wicked wit in the writing that brilliantly bridges the gap between people in their 20's and people in their 70's. It's fascinating how she manages to do it but do it she (mostly) does.
So what do audiences want? One thing is clear, Nancy Meyers movies make money! And back in the days when Mel Gibson wasn't seen as a complete lunatic she did a really fun movie called What Women Want with him. It received a mixed reception from the critics but audiences seemed to enjoy it and I certainly did. Once again, everyone is filthy rich. Mel lives in a gorgeous apartment and is a serial womaniser. He works in a beautiful building, making commercials that are aimed at young men and he is on the verge of a major promotion. Then along comes Helen Hunt. She ends up getting Mel's job because the company isn't competing in the ladies market and there are vast sums of money to be made. She gives everyone a box of "woman stuff" and tells them to go home and try to think about how to appeal more to women. Mel, of course, hates the idea but after a bottle of red wine he relaxes and throws himself into the assignment. He ends up in the bathtub, hair dryer in hand and unconscious. However, rather than being dead he is imbued with the power to hear the thoughts of nearby women. He quickly turns this to his advantage and by using Hunt's work ideas against her putting him two steps ahead of her. In doing so though he gets to know her and, as you'd expect, he falls for her. And she for him. Many critics give the movie shit for not looking too deeply into what women actually want but for those of us looking for some sweet romantic fun with solid performances and an abundance of chuckles, What Women Want delivered.
For the record, I suspect what women want is similar to what men want. Love, security, choices, a job and somewhere safe to live and raise our kids should we choose to have them... That some critics didn't seem to get this says more about them than this movie.
The last movie I'm going to talk about is The Holiday. This is a movie that is hated as much as it is loved. I've never heard anyone say "yeah it's okay". It's always "Oh I fucking love that movie" or the opposite of that.
So what's the what? Kate Winslet and Cameron Diaz swap homes for a while to just get away from their shit. Winslet is trying to forget about an asshole at work and Diaz wants away from her shitty half who has been nailing his secretary... (men are such assholes, aren't they) As you'd expect, both can afford to do this and are spoiled rotten when they land in each other's dwellings. For me, Diaz gets the slightly better deal as she ends up in an absolutely beautiful country cottage.
The postcard exterior is matched only by the coziness of the interior. Mind you Winslet does very well too as the Diaz home exudes luxury. Take a look:
Our heroines quickly fall into good company. Winslet finds comfort in a surprisingly affable Jack Black and friendship in an adorable Eli Wallach. Meanwhile in good old Blighty, Diaz is quickly won over by the ample charms of Jude Law. Despite the absolute "this would NEVER happen" nature of The Holiday, Meyers works a minor miracle by making us forget about the absurdity of it all. The movie, afterall, is called The Holiday. It wants you to forget the humdrum of your actual life and surrender to the surface beauty of it all. Just don't look under the hood as it might expose something you don't want to admit about yourself... more on that later.
The Holiday ends the way most of Nancy's movies do. The people we're rooting for get what they want therefore we get what we want and we sit there with big, stupid smiles on our faces.
You may have noticed that I'm using the actor's real names. This is simply because at no point in any of these movies do the people feel like real people. They feel like the next stage in human evolution devoid of the petty issues that plague us mere mortals though they never truly embrace their obvious superiority which makes them all the more irresistable. It's GENIUS!!!
"So what's the problem?" I hear you ask. For me, nothing. I have no problem at all. I genuinely enjoy most of Nancy's movies. The reasons are twofold. Nancy Meyers's is a much better writer/director than she gets credit for and I am shallow. I've always admitted it and I'm not ashamed. Meyer's movies are successful. Just pick a random one to look up on box office mojo: http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=intern.htm and you'll see. Also, I'm not sure whether this was premeditated or not but she has tapped into a huge market. We are shallow creatures. Oh yes. Deny it all you want but you want that fucking house. You want handsome friends. You want that amazing job that pays you more than you deserve. You want to be Ann Hathaway in the Intern or Mel Gibson in What Women Want. But most of all you want their problems. You want their problems because they're not really problems at all...
Nancy has a way with words. She's been the driving force behind some truly memorable movies but I'm just not sure if there's a lot to her movies and maybe there doesn't have to be. To quote the woman herself: “Well, I don’t see a lot of movies telling stories about complicated women with real problems,” she says, “and studies tell you that’s true. So I can’t say it’s gotten better. I have to be honest with you, I think it’s gotten worse.” Amen sister!
Cheers,
G.
