Keaton, Nicholson headline 2003's most entertaining romantic comedy

By Jack Garner
Gannett News Service

SOMETHING'S GOTTA GIVE (PG-13) Four Stars (Excellent) A witty, effervescent romantic comedy that makes maximum use of the considerable comic talents of Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton. They're perfect as smart and sassy characters who are shocked to find themselves in a September-September romance while the world seems hung up on that May-September thing. Nancy Meyers writes and directs. Columbia, 125 mins.

They're perfect as smart and sassy characters who are shocked to find themselves in a September-September romance while the world seems hung up on that May-September thing. With her sophisticated and oh-so-clever take on the vitality of the older woman, writer-director Nancy Meyers has created the most entertaining comedy of the year.

Meyers' goal is to show the fun, sexiness and pizazz of an unexpected, middle-aged love affair — and the filmmaker succeeds wonderfully. Because the sparks fly between two folks who are initially each other's enemy, the laughs come easy and often.

Nicholson is 63-year-old Harry Sanborn, a perennial Manhattan bachelor who is infamous for never dating anyone over 30. His exploits have even been fodder for a New York magazine story — and not just because he's the successful owner of a major rap music label. As the film opens, he's heading to the Hamptons to spend the weekend with his latest fling, an attractive, amiable twenty-something named Marin Barry (Amanda Peet).

Marin expects her family home to be vacant. Imagine Harry's surprise when they bump into Marin's mother, Erica (Diane Keaton), while raiding the refrigerator in their underwear. Mom — a very successful playwright — has come to the Hamptons to work on her new play. Then Harry suffers a heart attack and has to be rushed to a nearby hospital.

When Harry is forced to recuperate near the hospital — in the Barry home — the entanglements and laughs increase. The divorced playwright and the swingin' record label mogul are forced into unavoidable proximity, which is initially galling. First impressions are corrected, barriers are let down, and a romance gradually evolves.

Complications arise when Harry's young heart doctor (Keanu Reeves) also finds himself attracted to the fifty-something Erica. Despite the film's obvious agenda — the plight of the usually ignored older woman — "Something's Gotta Give" sidesteps the polemic for the playful. Meyers, a veteran of such screenplays as "Baby Boom," "Private Benjamin" and the newest "Father of the Bride," knows her way around romantic comedy. Here, though, she offers her best script, a sparkling amalgam of classic influences, especially the smart screwball comedies of George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart and the urbane psychoanalysis of the best Woody Allen.

Nicholson blends self-parody and amusing pratfalls to create an amiably likeable character, despite his caveman attitudes toward dating. Keaton is even better, a charming blend of intelligence, sass and class, topped off with the perfect dollop of vulnerability. Her reawakening to her sexuality is practically worth the price of admission.

The only flaw worth mentioning is the film's nothing title. Within the film, Erica is writing a play called "A Woman to Love." How much better that would have been for the film.

Rated PG-13, profanity, implied sex, fleeting nudity.