Something’s Gotta Give **** (2003, Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, Keanu Reeves, Frances McDormand, Amanda Peet, Jon Favreau) – Classic Movie Review 879

Diane Keaton gained her fourth Oscar nomination and won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical for Something’s Gotta Give (2003).

Writer-director Nancy Meyers’s 2003 comedy stars Jack Nicholson as the oldest swinger in town, Harry Sanborn, who falls for Marin (Amanda Peet), the 20something daughter of a playwright, Erica Barry (Diane Keaton). When Harry has a heart attack, Erica gets him to nice doctor Julian Mercer (Keanu Reeves) and a surviving Harry has a change of heart, eventually falling for Erica.

A likely story, this tall tale, and extended beyond belief, but The Jack Show makes it all worthwhile. Keaton tries hard to be cute, and audiences plus the Academy voters largely fell for it, awarding her her fourth Oscar nomination, after her Best Actress win for Annie Hall. She won the Golden Globe for Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical.

The hard-hearted will sit through her performance and all this romantic tosh stony faced, and, though the movie is two steps down from As Good As It Gets and one down from Anger Management, Nicholson is a guaranteed laughter turn.

Casting Reeves as a perky young doctor who in turn falls for Keaton, unrequited, just shows how silly this movie is, and so does sidelining Frances McDormand as Keaton’s sister.

Something’s Got To Give is the title of the 1962 unfinished remake of My Favorite Wife, which was to have starred Marilyn Monroe. She was fired from the film, then eventually re-hired, but died in August 1962 and the film was never completed.