Paris: Odéon 2010***
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It's Complicated but Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin have improved with age This article is more than 16 years old Who says that middle age spells the end of a Hollywood career? John Patterson celebrates two actors who've improved over time John Patterson Sat 2 Jan 2010 01.06 CET Share Prefer the Guardian on Google Old age may well be "a shipwreck", as De Gaulle once said of Marshal Pétain, but the sight of once-young actors settling contentedly into middle age – with beer guts, turkey-necks, double chins, crow's feet and all – is a blessed thing to witness. By way of example, I present you with the stars of It's Complicated. Miss Meryl Streep and Mr Alec Baldwin, she now 60, he a relative stripling of 51, yet joined in marriage, sundered by divorce and then reunited as adulterous exes-with-benefits in Nancy Meyer's sprightly (albeit slight) romcom for the underserved middle-aged moviegoing demographic. Whatever the movie's virtues, it gives us time to see Baldwin heading up a film on the big screen for the first time since 30 Rock transformed his career and screen persona. Before Tina Fey cast him as venal rightwing network chief Jack Donaghy, Baldwin was still wafted along by the fumes of his former persona, that of the failed and steadily fattening ex-pretty boy; movie star detritus that never made the cut. He was still cute enough as recently as 2003, in The Cooler, but his fluctuating weight between projects suggested that he didn't have his heart in the heroics any more. Fey, however, knew the other Baldwin, the funny Baldwin. As head writer on Saturday Night Live, she knew that Baldwin, with 14 guest host slots to his credit over the last 20 years, was one of the show's most beloved guests. He played north Jersey jag-offs and pea-brained Long Island lotharios better than anyone, and perhaps his most memorable sketch was as a scout master attempting to seduce a teenage Adam Sandler in his sleeping bag (the SNL DVD compilation of his guest appearances is a classic). Casting Baldwin in 30 Rock was the smartest move Fey ever made after impersonating Sarah Palin. It's a beautiful thing to watch, Baldwin being funny; it suggests he's better off without his talentless ex wife Kim Basinger, that he's shaken off the lame-ass brothers and that he's a little happier in his skin these days. Welcome home! As for Streep, headlines everywhere proclaim her a total babe at 60, and even suggest she's at the height of her career right now. They might not be wrong, for in the last eight years or so, Streep has finally made peace with her funny bone. Gone are the boringly impressive full spectrum of foreign accents, the Oscar-bait parts, and the actressy pomposity, and in their place, this delightful, often completely ditzy, seemingly ever-youthful Meryl Streep. I never liked the old Streep much anyway, precisely because the sense of humour – which was always there, if you read the old interviews – was so obscured. Now she's been walking that dog in every movie she's made since The Manchurian Candidate, and she's never looked happier or lovelier.
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