Something's Gotta Give

Release Date: December 12, 2003
Studio: Columbia Pictures
Director: Nancy Meyers
Screenwriter: Nancy Meyers
Starring: Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, Keanu Reeves, Amanda Peet, Frances McDormand, Jon Favreau
Genre: Comedy, Romance
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for sexual content, brief nudity and strong language)
Official Website: SonyPictures.com

Plot Summary: Academy Award® winners Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton star in a sparkling and sophisticated romantic comedy from acclaimed writer/director Nancy Meyers ("What Women Want," "The Parent Trap"), which proves that in matters of the heart, sometimes you can teach an old playboy new tricks. Harry Sanborn (Nicholson) is a New York music mogul with a libido much younger than his years. He has the world on a string -- and a string of beautiful young girlfriends to prove it. During a romantic rendezvous with his newest girlfriend, Marin (Amanda Peet), at her mother's Hamptons beach house, Harry develops chest pains and eventually winds up being nursed by Marin's reluctant mother, Erica Barry (Keaton) -- a successful, divorced New York playwright. In the process, Harry develops more heart pangs -- the romantic kind -- for Erica, a woman who is finally right for him in every way. However, some habits die hard, and when Harry hesitates to pursue Erica, his charming thirty-something doctor (Reeves) becomes smitten with her. Harry undergoes a true change of heart when he fights to win Erica back.

Something’s gotta be said for growing old romantically. Something’s Gotta Give is in its fifth week of release as of this writing and manages to just pip in ahead of the Mandy Moore - Matthew Goode romantic comedy Chasing Liberty at the U.S. box office, a young adult romance which is in its first week. Built around the personas of Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton this is written and directed by Nancy Meyers who helmed What Women Want just over three years ago, and the glossy look and themes of that film are similarly translated here.

Maybe it’s because Meyers has separated from her husband of nearly 20 years that she has taken on films recently that take a female’s view of the male human condition when they relate with the opposite sex.

Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt as their respective characters eventually got it on in What Women Want; will Jack and Diane do the same? That’s the essential premise of this movie. And so it’s about a male’s reluctance to commit, in this case Jack Nicholson’s Harry Sanborn, and the older man’s interest in younger women for "serial monogamy", if such a phrase could make any sense. This is also about a woman’s desire for commitment and intimacy in spite of a past failed relationship with her ex-husband, and the disappointment and disillusionment this offers. Erica Barry as played by Diane Keaton may get her second chance in Harry although he’s not what Erica would pick at first glance as an object of affection.

Erica is absorbed in her work as a playwright and initially has no time for men like Harry who would date younger women like her daughter, Marin (Amanda Peet). Marin thinks Harry is fun and interesting, "he owns ten companies" she enthuses, but starts to realise when they both visit Erica at her home, and Harry has a heart attack there, that he is better suited for her mother, and at this stage they’re just warming up to each other. The fun should begin when Harry and Erica are together in the same house alone while Harry is recovering and we anticipate the potential humorous conflict scenarios that could eventuate. The result is mildly amusing, kept afloat with solid performances from Nicholson and Keaton, who nearly upstages her co-lead for sheer charisma and who offer some sweet moments together.

To a lesser degree this looks at the younger man and woman’s romantic interest in the older woman and man. Keanu Reeves plays Harry’s doctor who has admired Erica’s work and when he inadvertently meets her in hospital he asks her out on a date. The perspective of Reeve’s character and Marin is not strong, the morality goes unquestioned and the issue is not developed, but the sense of their sophistication and worldliness is spot-on. In Birdcage the entire film focuses on a gay man outing himself to his conservative parents where the morality of the scenario is questioned through their eyes and the result is hilarious, yet for such potential the tiny part of a young man interested in an older woman is only titillating in Something’s Gotta Give. Still, the observations on relationships are what make Something’s Gotta Give more than just a laugh for audiences. In a sense there’s truth here.

Nevertheless, this is pure formula redone times before. The plotting is staged and the milieu is focussed on the love lives of rich and successful people, so we shouldn’t be too interested in them as they are so detached from the real world, the gloss look of the film adding to the romantic illusion. As leads we expect to see Nicholson and Keaton as more of celebrities in this than real characters – but the result is that they are appealing enough probably because of the skills of the actors so that the celebrity tag is temporarily undone and we’re involved in their predicament. When Nicholson is cast as a rap producer, though, you just got to laugh.