Thursday Minute
No. 40 | February 25, 2010

Women Behind the Camera II

Our theme this week
Women directors of notable films from 2009

Featured this week
Monday         —   Anne Fontaine
Tuesday         —   Betty Thomas
Wednesday    —   Agnès Varda

Featured last week
Monday         —   Lone Scherfig
Tuesday         —   Nora Ephron
Wednesday    —   Claire Denis
Thursday        —   Anne Fletcher
Friday            —   Kathryn Bigelow

Nancy Meyers

The essentials
Notable 2009 film:  It’s Complicated; nominated for 3 Golden Globe, including Best Picture – Musical or Comedy, and Best Screenplay (Nancy Meyers); worldwide box office (to date), $186+ million.

The cast of It’s Complicated—winners of the National Board of Review’s award for best ensemble—may have a reunion Oscar night.  Meryl Streep is nominated for Best Actress (for Julie & Julia), and Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin will share hosting duties.  Knowing the cast alone tells you a few things about the film:  it’s a movie aimed at adults, there’ll be a few laughs, and expect some mischief.  The “It” in the title is a love triangle—the bakery owner played by Streep has an affair with her ex played by Baldwin and is pursued by an architect played by Martin.  It’s not only complicated, it’s an age-old, tried-and-true formula for romantic comedy.  You don’t watch so much to find out what happens but to enjoy the performers put on a show.  The aim is to entertain.  Maybe that’s not so complicated after all.

It’s Complicated is the fifth film directed by Nancy Meyers.  As she usually does, she wrote the script and produced too.  Her first directing job was The Parent Trap (1998), the Disney remake that was young Lindsay Lohan’s debut.  She followed that with one big hit, the Mel Gibson-Helen Hunt comedy What Women Want (2000), then another one, Something’s Gotta Give (2003), with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton.  The Holiday (2006) aimed younger, with Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet swapping homes in L.A. and London while finding romance with Jack Black and Jude Law.  Meyers’s romantic comedies have all done especially well at the box office, with What Women Want setting a record at the time as the top grosser of any film directed by a woman.

Prior to directing, Meyers was a successful writer and producer, often collaborating with her onetime husband, writer-producer Charles Shyer.  She co-wrote Father of the Bride (1991) and its sequel (1995), both starring Martin.  Her first credit, and big break, was Private Benjamin, with Goldie Hawn, in 1980.  It was a statement to Hollywood:  a film starring a single female lead can do well—in fact, very well—at the box office.  Meyers shared an Oscar nomination for the original screenplay.

Beyond the final credits
Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin will be teaming up for the Oscars for the first time, but they have plenty of experience as hosts.  Each hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live in 2009.  For Baldwin, it was his 14th time hosting the show.  That’s more than any other SNL host, save one.  Martin has 15 hosting appearances (and 26 guest appearances altogether).

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It’s Complicated (2009)
Nancy Meyers, director

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Interview with Nancy Meyers

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Poinf of View
“Virtue has its own reward, but has no sale at the box office.”
—Mae West

…58…59…60.