It's Complicated

Nancy Meyers wrote and directed it, and although the story is set in Santa Barbara, almost every interior was shot in New York. Jane’s house was built at Broadway Stages in Brooklyn, her bakery inside the Picnic House in Prospect Park, and the exterior of the house was a late 1920s ranch property in Thousand Oaks. Every scene with Steve Martin had to be finished in the first two months, because he was leaving on a tour for his banjo record. Jane’s ex-husband is the lawyer Jake, married to the much younger Agness; Adam, the architect hired to remodel her kitchen, is a separate corner of the triangle. The National Board of Review gave it the best ensemble cast prize for the 2009 season. Three Golden Globe nominations followed, and Meryl Streep was nominated twice in the same category, for this film and for Julie & Julia, winning for the other one. Alec Baldwin was nominated at the BAFTAs for best supporting actor. A good fit if you want the kitchen, the bakery and the house remodel treated as subjects in their own right rather than as backdrop. Not for anyone planning a family evening: the BBFC passed it 15 and cited soft drug use and sex references.