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It’s high time that we stopped ignoring female directors in this column. When I originally sat to write, I was ready to tackle the direction of Sofia Coppola. But alas, that just is not the mood I’m in and I don’t have the patience to breakdown the sublimity of Lost in Translation nor the staleness of Somewhere. That’ll be for another time. No, today is a supremely lazy Sunday. One spent lounging in my apartment, with an almost endless run of mindless movies playing since I opened my eyes this morning. These are not the most challenging movies I have been watching. These are the kind of movies that go down like bubbly mimosa or a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich. They’re as tasty and satisfying as brunch, but equally unnecessary. What better company is there on a day like today, than the effervescent films of Nancy Meyers?

My love affair with Meyers’ films began in 1998 with the remake of THE PARENT TRAP. Now for a personal anecdote: when I was 11-years-old I went to the movies with my best friend to see the horror flick Halloween H2O. This was a very adult thing for us to do, and we felt super cool about it. Well I think about three minutes into the movie, an unfortunate soul meets a grisly ending with an ice skate blade to the face. At that moment, my buddy and I turned to each other, and with hardly a word spoken, bee-lined for the exit. My mother and younger brother, merely eight-years-old, went to see the far too childish (by my 11-year-old standards) PARENT TRAP a few screens over. Ashamed, we went and sat with them, and I reluctantly enjoyed every second that followed.

That movie is fantastic. Lindsay Lohan was my peer and I loved her until she became impossible to love. I miss Natasha Richardson almost entirely because of that film. And is there a cuter love story than that of the California nanny and British butler? If there is then I don’t yet know it. Alas, this was the start of my love for Meyer’s style. She has made a career of films that feel airy, delightful, and filled with well-to-do yet somehow sympathetic characters. We’ll skip a review of follow-up feature, What Women Want, a fun farce that is sullied now with Mel Gibson’s since-established reputation. That leaves her most recent three outings, Something's Gotta Give, The Holiday, and It's Complicated. Lets break out our mimosas and enjoy a Sunday review of the frothiest dramedies out there.

Something's Gotta Give

I think a lot of people mix up the two Jack Nicholson starrers, As Good as It Gets and Something's Gotta Give. The mouth-filling generic titles feel similar in the backlog of movie memories for more than just a few people, and I like to think of SGG as AGAIG’s younger, less mature brother. The movie is a two-hour opus that reveals little of actual character growth, or even straight comedy. Instead, we’re treated to weekends on beach house hanging out with our favorite womanizer Jack, and our older crush Diane Keaton. Things happen to them through the course of two hours, sure. There’s a storyline about Jack, intimate with Diane’s daughter, having some kind of heart episode. There’s a young doctor who sweeps Diane off her feet for a little while. Then Jack and Diane get it on John Mellencamp style, there’s another heart incident, someone writes a play about all of this high drama, there’s a trip to Paris, and if I recall correctly, everyone ends up happy. Except Keanu Reeves.

The reason why I summarize the movie's events thusly isn’t because they aren’t fun to watch. It’s just that, they don’t really matter. I don’t need an excuse to watch Jack smoke a cigar and to see Diane behave like Annie Hall. Just invite me to your spacious house in the Hamptons to hang out with them, and I’m there.

And apparently, I am not alone. In early December 2003, SGG opened to a very modest $16 million opening weekend – half of What Women Want earned over a comparable weekend three years earlier. But legs were in the cards for this one, as they are for all Meyers' flicks. Word got around about how much fun Jack and Diane were having and audiences caught on to the tune of $124 million domestically and another $142 internationally. This is rarified air for romantic comedies, and Sony had to wait the requisite three-year Meyer gap for her next holiday offering.

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