Writer-director Nancy Meyers (Something's Gotta Give, The Holiday) brings moviegoers her latest film with an all-star cast, a comedy about love, divorce and everything in between. 

Jane Adler (Meryl Streep) is the mother of three grown kids, owns a thriving Santa Barbara bakery/restaurant and has--after a decade of divorce--an amicable relationship with her ex-husband, attorney Jake (Alec Baldwin).  But when Jane and Jake find themselves out of town for their son's college graduation, things start to get complicated. 
An innocent meal together leads to several bottles of wine, which in turn becomes a laugh-filled evening of memories about their 19-year marriage…and then to an impulsive affair.  With Jake remarried to the much younger Agness (Lake Bell), Jane is now, of all things, the other woman.
Caught in the middle of this renewed romance is Adam (Steve Martin), an architect hired to remodel Jane's kitchen.  Also divorced, Adam starts to fall for Jane, but soon realizes he's become part of an unusual love triangle. 
Should Jane and Jake move on with their separate lives, or has the passage of time made them realize that they really are better together than apart?  It's…complicated.

A Work in Progress: It's Complicated Begins
Over the past 30 years, Nancy Meyers has made several successful romantic comedies featuring adult characters forced to come face-to-face with truths they've long been avoiding.  Throughout the years, the filmmaker has incorporated her own life experiences into her work.  In It's Complicated, she taps into the world of life after divorce.
Meyers' screenplay examines a divorced couple who become exes with benefits.  The decade-separated Jane and Jake Adler find themselves stumbling through the comic emotional minefield of a clandestine affair, while the charming-yet-reserved Adam struggles to move on from a painful divorce of his own.   
"Some people never learn the simple truths," offers Meyers.  "It's the lucky ones who ultimately learn something.  I tend to explore things that, in some ways, I wrestle with.  Writing has always been very therapeutic for me.  A lot of my movies parallel events in my life, but I've never joined the army [Private Benjamin], and I've never had an affair with my ex-husband.  The plotting is never the truth, but what's underneath is heartfelt."
Meyers found enormous comedic possibilities exploring the territory of an ex-wife having an affair with her ex-husband.  For inspiration, she looked to Paul Mazursky classics from the '70s--such as An Unmarried Woman and Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice--as examples of films strongly identifiable with the period in which they were made.  Mazursky really captured the zeitgeist of the times.  She offers: "I was drawn to the post-divorce world that exes find themselves in and how their relationship, in many ways, never really ends: the bumping into one another, figuring out how to still parent together, how to live in the same town together.  I noticed how much the word 'together' still exists once you're divorced.
"The idea of a exes reuniting surreptitiously was intriguing," Meyers reflects.  "The comic possibilities were very rich, and the repercussions of this ex-couple back in each other's lives seemed dangerous and liberating at the same time.  This story really pulled me in.  The 'What if?' factor was just so complex, it had so many levels to it and then there was a new man to bring into the mix…just to complicate it even further." 
With her story in place, Meyers worked with producer Scott Rudin to make the project happen.  "I've known Scott for over 25 years, and I watched his career grow; he is a phenomenal force in the business," she notes.  "He has impeccable taste, makes smart, interesting films and works with great filmmakers.  I went to him with this movie and said, 'I'd really love your help in putting it together and making the film.'  He's been an incredible asset to the movie."
"Nancy is a genuinely wonderful filmmaker," says Rudin.  "I've always been a huge, huge fan of hers, so I was completely thrilled when she invited me to produce this one with her.  I used to offer her movies to direct all the time, and she always turned me down, saying that she wasn't ready.  Well of course she was ready, and this is, in my opinion, her very best film." 
Throughout their development process, Rudin was moved by the authenticity of feeling he found in the project.  He states: "Nancy never once sacrifices any of the comedy she's reaching for by simultaneously investing the story with so much emotional truth.  The detailed representation of the marriage, the intimacy between the people--all of it is moving and true, and makes the movie relatable on a profound and unexpected level."
The producer was also impressed by the screenplay's honesty.  "Nancy shows a great deal of herself in this movie…not so much in the specifics of Jane, but in the feelings she's describing all throughout the movie," he says.  "Her love of family, her love of her kids, her belief in romance and in living a life in good faith…these are things that matter to Nancy." 

Friends and Lovers: Casting the Film
While writing the script, Nancy Meyers kept Meryl Streep in mind for the role of the 50-something Jane, a successful mother and business owner who feels she has finally moved on from her divorce and is building the life she wants.  Says Meyers: "I pictured Meryl in this part, and I pictured her doing things that I would never have the guts to do.  Thinking of Meryl pushed me as I wrote.  Jane is definitely braver than I am, and it was fun writing that bravery and the choices she would make and the chances she would allow herself to take.  As she says in the film, she 'experimented with a part of herself.'  I'd rather experiment with a character in a movie than actually make the choices she makes…but that's why she was so fun and engaging a character for me to write."  Read more

MERYL STREEP is a two-time Academy Award winner and recipient of a record-breaking 15 nominations.Read more

Brooklyn to Santa Barbara: On Location
Although the majority of It's Complicated is set in Santa Barbara, California, three-quarters of the filming, including nearly all of the interiors, took place in New York City.  Principal photography began February 18, 2009, in Brooklyn at Broadway Stages, where the scenes that take place at Jane's house were shot.  Read more

Reflecting the Light:Production Design
Production designer Hutman and his crew spent months on a massive stage at the Broadway Stages studios in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, constructing the set that would serve as the inside of Jane's home.  Read more

California Cuisine: Food Design
Food plays a major role in the film, and some form of it appears in most of the major sequences.  Throughout the production, culinary consultant SUSAN SPUNGEN was behind the scenes in a special studio kitchen turning out dish after dish. Read more

Spanish Influence: The Film's Costumes
While working with Hutman on the design of the sets, Meyers was also conferring with costume designer Sonia Grande on her performers' outfits.  She had seen Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which Grande had designed, and thought the clothes were fantastic.  She asked Grande to fly in from Barcelona, and because Grande spoke very little English at the time, she brought along an interpreter.Read more

ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

NANCY MEYERS (Written and Directed by/Produced by) has developed a reputation as a first-rate writer, director and producer of literate and sophisticated romantic comedies.  Meyers made an auspicious debut as a director--following two decades of successful screenwriting and producing--with the highly popular update of the Disney classic The Parent Trap, starring Dennis Quaid and Lindsay Lohan, which Meyers also co-wrote. 
Meyers then directed the blockbuster romantic comedy What Women Want, starring Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt, which enjoyed critical acclaim and an international box-office success.  For his role, Gibson received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Performance by an Actor--Musical or Comedy.
In 2003, Meyers wrote, directed and produced Something's Gotta Give, starring Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton, along with Keanu Reeves, Frances McDormand and Amanda Peet.  Both Nicholson and Keaton received Golden Globe nominations for their performances and Keaton won the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture--Musical or Comedy.  Keaton was also nominated for an Academy Award^® for her role as Erica Barry in the film.  In 2004, Meyers received the ShoWest Director of the Year Award.  She is the first woman ever to receive this prestigious honor.
Most recently, Meyers wrote, directed and produced The Holiday, starring Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz, Jude Law and Jack Black.  The comedy was another hit at the worldwide box office. 
As a writer/producer, Meyers' first film was the groundbreaking Private Benjamin, starring Goldie Hawn, which Meyers produced and co-wrote with Charles Shyer and Harvey Miller.  Released in 1980, the film bucked conventional wisdom at the time, which dictated that a female lead could not open a movie without a male star.  The story of a pampered young woman who joins the Army, Private Benjamin became a huge hit domestically and internationally.  The screenplay earned Meyers the Writers Guild of America Award for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen, and the film earned three Academy Award nominations for Best Original Screenplay, Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress.  Goldie Hawn was also nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture--Musical or Comedy.  After the success of Private Benjamin, Meyers co-wrote and produced the critically acclaimed Irreconcilable Differences, followed by Baby Boom, starring Diane Keaton, and the box-office hits Father of the Bride and Father of the Bride Part II, both of which starred Steve Martin and Keaton.

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