Something's Gotta Give

Something's Gotta Give is a lively and intelligent comedy about love across and in spite of age. Like director Nancy Meyers' previous films "What Women Want" and "The Parent Trap", however, the film is a little long-winded. A comedy should not last more than two hours.

Jack Nicholson plays Harry Sanborn, the successful head of his own record company. Although he is in his sixties, he is still living the merry playboy life. On principle he has no affairs with women over thirty, and marriage is completely out of the question.

Harry is looking forward to getting under the duvet with his latest conquest Marin on a romantic weekend at her family's summer house. They are surprised, however, by Marin's mother, the playwright Erica, and her sister Zoe. Things only really go wrong when Harry has a heart attack just as he is about to throw himself on Marin. Harry is admitted to hospital, where the likeable young doctor Julian Mercer is more interested in the mature, elegant Erica than in Marin, who is his own age.

After his stay in hospital Harry is installed in the summer house alone with Erica. Neither of them is thrilled with the arrangement. Erica sees Harry as utterly superficial, and he sees her as a tight-lipped prude. Even so, sparks begin to fly between them, but everything is complicated by Harry's fear of surrendering to his emotions and the young doctor's flattering courtship of Erica.

On film we are so used to seeing older male stars paired with very young women that the screen romance between Diane Keaton and Keanu Reeves is refreshing. The ending is predictable enough, though, and at the same time somewhat unsatisfying and conventional.