Something's Gotta Give, true to form, does not really depart from the genial, sentimental formulas of its genre. Some of the jokes are flat, and some scenes that should sparkle with screwball effervescence sputter instead. But what Meyers lacks in inventiveness she makes up for in generosity, to the actors and therefore to the
audience.
Nicholson and Keaton -- last seen together, in rather different circumstances, as Eugene O'Neill and Louise Bryant in Warren Beatty's Reds -- spar with the freedom of professionals with nothing left to prove, and Nicholson has the gentlemanly grace to step aside and let Keaton claim the movie. She in turn brings out the best in everyone around her. Reeves, liberated from the Matrix and the burden of being the One, mocks his own mellow blandness but conveys his character's ardor for Erica without the slightest hint of facetiousness.
Frances McDormand, as Erica's sister, a professor of women's studies, sidesteps the temptations of caricature and tosses off some of the movie's funniest lines. Peet, zany and appealing in an underwritten role, continues her steady, zigzagging growth into one of the most interesting (and, by this critic at least, often underestimated) young actresses around. If she keeps it up, she could be the next Diane Keaton.
Which, as of this writing, is about the highest praise I can confer. After Erica's tears have dried, she and the audience are rewarded with a giddy, Lubitschean third act, which swirls through Manhattan and the Caribbean before touching down -- but of course -- in Paris for a sweetly predictable denouement. If Erica's distress makes you laugh, her richly deserved joy might just bring a tear to your eye.
Julian had it right: she is a woman to love. "You're incredibly sexy," he says to her at one point.
"I swear to God, I'm not," she replies.
I swear to God, she's wrong.
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