At 60, Meryl Streep exudes energy, talent

By Margaret McCormick

A luminous Meryl Streep looks out from the cover of the January issue of Vanity Fair magazine. Her skin, pale as alabaster, looks as smooth as it, too. Her cheekbones are sculpted, her eyes are a brilliant blue, her lips and cheeks a soft pink.  Her blonde hair, tinged with a touch of gray, is brushed back from her forehead.
Her face shows few lines, just a few fine ones around the eyes, delicate as crazing on a vintage porcelain plate.

Beneath this image of Streep, stunning in its simplicity, is a headline that reads “Meryl’s Magic, 30 Years with America’s Greatest Actress.’’ Above that is a quote that gets your attention, especially if you are a woman of a certain age:

“I’m 60 and I’m playing the romantic lead. Bette Davis is rolling over in her grave.’’

Streep, who follows 23-year-old heartthrob Robert Pattinson, star of several hit vampire movies, on the Vanity Fair cover, is far from an actor in her twilight. Inside the magazine, in a profile by Leslie Bennetts, she gushes about being “bankable’’ at the box office at her advanced age.

The actress follows her role in “Julie and Julia,’’ in which she gives a masterful and memorable performance as American food icon Julia Child during her transformative years in France, with a comedic turn as a divorced woman with three grown children and two suitors (her ex-husband and the architect working on an addition to her house) in “It’s Complicated.’’

Go Meryl!, Go Meryl!, you say to your 50-year-old self after seeing the movie’s trailer and laughing out loud as the star of “Sophie’s Choice’’ and other serious cinematic fare confides to her girlfriends about her affair with a “new” man: “Turns out I’m a bit of a slut.’’

For Streep’s character, the words “It’s complicated’’ are far more than a relationship status update on Facebook, the popular social networking site. Those words describe her relationship with her ex, played by “30 Rock’’ star Alec Baldwin, himself 51, with whom she drinks, dances, carries on and has what she initially thinks is a one-night-stand at the college graduation of their son.

Back home, he turns up at her house and in her bedroom, and they’re sneaking around, unbeknownst to their children, his much-younger wife and her would-be-beau, played by silver-haired Steve Martin.

Complicated also describes Jane’s state of mind — and body. She has everything — a successful bakery and cafe, a beautiful home in California, three adult children who love her and talk to her openly, a trio of loyal women friends — but no man in her life.

Her middle-aged body seems to be sagging everywhere, and she briefly contemplates plastic surgery as a pick-me-up, until hearing an “eyelid lift’’ described in graphic detail. Baldwin’s character, Jake, meanwhile, pats his big “spare tire’’ and has a heart scare while in the throes of passion.

New York Times reviewer Manohla Dargis describes “It’s Complicated’’ as a “September-September’’ romance, a reference to the mutual middle age of the movie’s lead characters, and it is a pleasant change of pace from the “June-December’’ romances often seen on screen, usually with an older man and a much-younger woman.

“This movie turns our stereotypes upside down,’’ says licensed marriage and family therapist Susan Hartman Brenizer, 56, whose practice is in Fayetteville. “A middle-aged woman who is naturally beautiful, not heavy but not skinny, has wrinkles and most of all is absolutely beautiful because she is comfortable on her own skin, even running from the plastic surgeon’s office when told of the brutality of plastic surgery…
“Women were laughing the loudest at the showing I attended. ‘

Call it what you will —  a romantic comedy, film lite, a chick flick — but “It’s Complicated’’  makes you wince a little even as it makes you smile.

A female friend notes that the lead characters were married as long a couple you know (almost 20 years) and divorced just as long (10 years), and points out that in movie land, just as in real life, grown kids have “issues” long after divorce rocks their world and still hold out hope their parents might reunite and live happily ever after.

“As a culture, we completely underestimate the effect of divorce on children, from infancy to adulthood,’’ Brenizer says. “…Yes, 10 years later, children can still be ‘getting over’ their parents’ divorce.’’

Streep’s character, Jane, is so confused by the turn of events with her ex and concerned about the repercussions that she makes an appointment with her therapist to ask his advice — another reason Brenizer gives “It’s Complicated” her “thumbs up”:

“A very good time to do so (consult a therapist) is when one is about to make a major life-altering decision,’’ Brenizer says. “However, the advice he gave her, in my opinion was off the mark. ‘Let it go Jane’ is what he said, with complete disregard for the consequences to her. (She almost lost what seemed like a great budding relationship because of this, to say nothing about the confusion to the children.)

“OK, this is a comedy,’’ Brenizer continues, “but the most ‘sane’ advice she got was from the Steve Martin character: ‘Come back to me when you have really detached from your ex-husband. This was ‘spot on’, and much better than the advice from the therapist.’’

Take Brenizer’s advice and mine too: If you’re a woman or a man of a certain age, married or single, see this movie in the theater (the shared experience of a room loud with laughter is a mood-lifter) or rent it when it comes out on DVD.

Brenizer, who never misses an opportunity to see Meryl Streep on the big screen, saw the movie with her husband, 64, a matrimonial and family attorney with a practice in Syracuse (“he laughed harder than I did,’’ she says).

“I would absolutely recommend it to women over 40 who are afraid of the very things made comical in the movie: Get a bit older, gain a bit of weight, get menopausal, be invisible to men.

“All of that is too funny,’’ the therapist says, “except that it is also true.’’