Remember when the mere thought of your middle-aged parents having sex made you cringe? Who’s cringing now? Not this 53-year-old woman, as I rewatch Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson get it on in the 2003 film Something’s Gotta Give. The story goes that when writer-director Nancy Meyers pitched the idea to Keaton, the actor snorted and said, “No one will make a movie about someone my age falling in love.”
Keaton was 57 when the movie came out. It was a huge hit, grossing more than $260 million worldwide at the box office. Still, Hollywood didn’t get the hint and green-light a spate of romantic comedies—or films of any other genres—aimed at people who misplace their reading glasses. Maybe they just figured, “It’s complicated,” which happens to be the title of Meyers’s follow-up middle-aged romp in 2009. (Check it out: Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin go at it a few times.)
Cut to more than a decade later, and Hollywood finally sees us Gen Xers and baby boomers. director Kasi Lemmons picked up wins.) “America is aging, despite our efforts to deny it. And that box office power is dawning on the suits.”
