I Confess: I Am TOTALLY Going to See This Movie

I freely acknowledge that Did You Hear About the Morgans? looks slightly disastrous.  It is, among other things I violently dislike, a fish out of water comedy, and an opposites feud their way into romance comedy.  It relies on jokes about city people who don't like Sarah Palin.  But, in its defense, the movie doesn't seem to make country people look stupid.  Sgt. Ellis Carver appears to have gone on from the Baltimore Police Department to work in Witness Protection, so hey, good for him.  And though I didn't know it until now, I have been waiting all my life for Hugh Grant to say to a large bear: "My wife is a member of PETA.  I have been meaning to join."

But really, the reason I will see Did You Hear About the Morgans? is that I love Hugh Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker in a way that didn't seem remotely possible to me ten years ago.  They are actors who have gotten looser, and funnier, and a little sadder, too, as they've aged, and I think it's marvelous.  They've moved beyond the years when they looked the best to acting that is somehow truer than anything they did then.  Grant's self-deprecating performance in Music and Lyrics is a marvel of self-awareness wrapped up in a trifle, and Sex and the City may have become a horrifying machine of a franchise, but Parker isn't afraid to look bad in it any more, and that takes courage.  I'm sure It's Complicated will be the far better of these two grown-up romances, but I'd like to be able to have Parker and Grant's wryness about myself when I get older, and I'll enjoy watching them use it to tango with each other.