It’s bad enough that Nancy Meyer’s (The Holiday, Something’s Gotta Give) latest conventional romcom is blessed with a title so bluntly unimaginative as to seem facetious; the rub is that it’s not even a truthful assessment. Divorced baker Jane (Meryl Streep) embarks on an unexpected and ill-advised affair with her former husband, Jake (Alec Baldwin). As this swaggering ex is now married to a hot young psycho (Lake Bell) and Jane is also falling for her dorky architect (Steve Martin), this amorous development supposedly turns circumstances knotty. Yet in Meyers’ milquetoast hands, the way the scenario plays out isn’t so much tricky as treacly, with sporadic bursts of sitcom goofiness.

The writer-director’s rickety portrait of middle-aged loneliness, regret and self-consciousness is propped up by Streep and Baldwin’s natural love-hate chemistry and joint refusal to succumb to slapsticky ridiculousness. Nonetheless, a greater focus on off-the-wall humour would have benefited Martin, who’s shamefully saddled with being the plot’s perfunctory third wheel. More mirth and less tear-streaked schmaltz might have alleviated the tale’s dramedy dawdling, as Meyers goes to such unnecessary lengths to craft allegedly complex protagonists that the comedy soon goes down like lead.

Nick Schager

From Time Out New York

Dir Nancy Meyers, Category IIB, 121 mins, opens Thursday 11