Despite certain heated discussions to the contrary, boomer movie stars, including women, continue to show up in leading roles as they enter their respective eighth or ninth decades on the planet; which isn’t to say they’re getting the quality of work that made their names back in the day, but producers obviously believe they still have something audiences want. I tend to think this kind of dynamic is the reason for so many romantic comedies these days—mostly British in provenance—involving senior citizens. Maybe I Do is strictly American and something of a predictable lemon, but not necessarily because it seems to waste its famous cast. Based on a play by the man who directs it, Michael Jacobs, the movie feels totally derivative in a way that’s almost offensive. 

We have two couples who are supposed to be in what I assume to be late middle age—Grace and Howard (Diane Keaton, Richard Gere) and Monica and Sam (Susan Sarandon, William H. Macy). As with most late middle age couples, the spark has gone out of their relationships, and as the movie opens we learn that Howard has been having an affair for about 6 months with Monica and is thinking of breaking it off. Meanwhile, Grace and Sam meet cute in a revival art house cinema where they sometimes go by themselves in the afternoon. Though nothing physical happens between them, the thought is there and it definitely counts. Jacobs’ dialogue is so stage-bound the screen practically reeks of sawdust, but besides being weighted down with the kind of diction no one uses in real life, the lines are meant to convey certain philosophical truths that might have been provocative had they been in service to a more interesting story. Naturally, both couples are well-off and (spoiler alert—though reportedly the following intelligence is revealed in the trailer) as it turns out their adult children, Grace and Howard’s Michelle (Emma Roberts) and Monica and Sam’s Allen (Luke Bracey), are planning on getting engaged, and it isn’t until the two sets of parents meet for the first time that they realize they’ve been dallying with future possible in-laws. Emotional chaos ensues but not hilarity. 

As it turns out, the main complication is not these couples’ infidelities but rather Michelle’s cold feet. She’s already having second thoughts about jumping into matrimony and the old folks’ somehow conclude that they’re to blame for that by having set poor examples, and they do have a point in that regard. But a more serious problem than the paucity of chuckles is that Jacobs’ view of love, be it young or mature, seems culled from romantic movies and not from life, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing but romantic comedies are sold on fantasies that at least bring the viewer out of their own world. Maybe I Do wants its half-baked squirm comedy and its supposedly gimlet-eyed view of marriage in equal measure, and ends up delivering neither. 

Opens March 8 in Tokyo at Shinjuku Musashinokan (03-3354-5670), Human Trust Cinema Yurakucho (03-6259-8608), Yebisu Garden Cinema (0570-7830715).

Maybe I Do home page in Japanese

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