Ex's meet: Alec Baldwin and Meryl Streep

IT'S COMPLICATED ** Directed by Nancy Meyers. Starring Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, Alec Baldwin, John Krasinski, Lake Bell, Mary Key Place, Rita Wilson15A cert, gen release, 118 min
WHAT'S THAT you say? Nancy Meyers, director of inert comedies such as Something's Gotta Giveand The Holiday, has knocked together a new film starring Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin?

So, they play a divorced couple who, while visiting New York for their daughter’s graduation, drink too many cocktails and fall back into bed? Are you telling me that it’s not very good? And about 118 minutes long?

People talk that way throughout It's Complicated. Back-story, obscure motivations and incidents that happen off-screen are all drably explained in the least nuanced language you will encounter outside a Highway Code booklet.

The central relationship is certainly somewhat messy. Alec has a young wife and Steve Martin’s drippy architect is courting Meryl. But, in truth, it’s hard to imagine how this humdrum film could be any less complicated. The failure to inject any chicanes into the storytelling or to detoxify Mr Baldwin’s character – a sleazy oaf who begins spying on Meryl moments after romantic re-ignition — badly lets down a very decent cast.

The recent transformation in the personae of Baldwin and Streep remains a marvel: a once-derided leading man has become a weighty character actor; a performer known for her iciness is now routinely the warmest presence on screen. On a few occasions, the right sparks fly and we catch a hint of what might have been. But, for the most part, we are reduced to enduring such lame comedy staples as the middle- aged fogey smoking dope for the first time in decades.

Are you saying the aging stoners speak really slowly while eating large amounts of cake? Do the young people look askance? Does the joke outstay it’s welcome in seconds? You’ve got the film’s measure.