Something's Gotta Give

Went with Tammy.  To a chick-flick.  :-)  I don't mind them, actually.

Jack Nicholson is an very rich old guy with a reputation for dating beautiful young women.  If I remember rightly, one of the characters even said he was famous for it.

In this case, he's spending a weekend with Amanda Peet, (I'm gonna put "nude" on the page here close to her name.  I'm curious how many search hits I'm going to get with it.  That was by far the most common search phrase to hit my site after I posted my Whole Nine Yards review. :-) and they get discovered by Peet's mother, Diane Keaton.  As the preview shows, "Who would have thought that was worse than a burglar."

From there, you can pretty much guess what's going to happen.  Nicholson has a mild heart attack and is prohibited from going back to NYC for several days.  Peet has to get back to work, so Keaton is forced to take care of him.  Meanwhile, Keanu is a fan of Keaton's writing, so she has an opportunity for a May-September romance of her own.  And hilarity ensues.

There are a few clever twists thrown in.  Keaton's friend, Frances McDormand, revels in insulting Nicholson, so there are plenty of humorous barbs thrown.  Keaton is appalled at Nicholson chasing her daughter, and thinks she naturally wants to follow that fairly common taboo.  Yet, when Keanu shows interest, suddenly the taboo seems too strict.  So she waffles back and forth on that.

Meanwhile, Nicholson notices that Keaton is still pretty good looking, and obviously she's his intellectual and emotional equal.  Between that and his frustrated libido, he starts to fall for her.  So now she has two guys to choose from.  Each appealing in his own way.

Back and forth and back and forth.

There are a few cute bits, like, they first really start talking to each other from across the house on chat.  It's kind of a double-chuckle, because it's two "old" people using chat, and it's they're in the same house.  And the chat conversation goes pretty smoothly.  I don't think most moviegoers realize just how much chat helps get past some inhibitions, because it gives both people time to think about, and edit, their replies.  The delays and lack of immediacy can be a tremendous aid.  It can remove a lot of tension.

They do manage a pretty good job of stringing you along to the end.  Trying to figure out just who is going to end up with who.

On my brother's Total Movie Value Scale, Rental.  Cute love story.  About what you'd expect, with only minor twists.  Kinda clever about it, though.

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