 It may seem like the most impossible of tasks -- stealing a movie starring Jack Nicholson -- but judging from most of the reviews, that's precisely what Diane Keaton does in Something's Gotta Give. A. O. Scott in the New York Times writes of her "unparalleled comic skill," and calls her performance "at once entirely coherent and dizzyingly unpredictable." Scott also praises the performance of Frances McDormand, writing: "If she keeps it up, she could be the next Diane Keaton. Which, as of this writing, is about the highest praise I can confer." Philip Wuntch in the Dallas Morning News remarks on Keaton's "superb performance," adding "Her wit, authority and poignancy elevate the film out of the purgatory of 'pretty good.'" Several critics write about the happy screen chemistry of Keaton and Nicholson: "When they shuck clothes and pitch woo, they make convincing magic," writes Michael Wilmington in the Chicago Tribune. Peter Howell in the Toronto Star observes: "There's a lot of pleasure in watching seasoned pros like Nicholson and Keaton do their pas de deux of late-blooming romance. It's easy to imagine them as a couple in real life, and that's half the battle." And Roger Ebert in the Chicago Sun-Times notes: "They bring so much experience, knowledge and humor to their characters that the film works in ways the screenplay might not have even hoped for." Not all of the critics are charmed. John Anderson in Newsday suggests that the film fails at making middle-age romance either artistically or commercially respectable. "If the movie contained a single genuine moment, one nanosecond of sincerity, about the very virtues it was supposed to be about, I must have blinked," he writes. And Megan Lehmann in the New York Post scoffs: "Keaton's overamped girlishness, and the adolescent shenanigans she engages in, make a mockery of this overlong romantic comedy's stance as a celebration of mature love." |
