GIVE IN TO NANCY MEYERS AND REWATCH HER MOVIES

The visual language of Meyer's domestic universes are the key to her rewatchability. Plus, a ranking.

One of my favorite lines in cinematic history belongs to Meyers’ 2003 romantic comedy, Something’s Gotta Give. Erica Barry (played by Diane Keaton) and Harry Sanborn (Jack Nicholson) are stuck in Erica’s Hamptons beach house (poor things!) as Sanborn nurses himself back to health after suffering a heart attack. Up until this moment, they haven’t gotten along. Erica sees Harry as a shallow playboy preying on her twenty-something daughter, and Harry finds Erica to be stuffy and uptight. After a mild flirtation via instant messenger (AIM of course, this is 2003), they choose to set their differences aside and have a midnight snack together. Erica recites the contents of her refrigerator so Harry can choose what they’ll eat. 

“Ok,” she says, opening the giant floor-to-ceiling fridge door, “pancakes, pasta, leftover coq au vin…Grilled cheese?” 

Left. Over. Coq. Au. Vin. Leftover coq au vin! I love it so much. Not only because I can imagine Nancy Meyers typing away at her screenplay on a giant mahogany table disguised as a desk, just absolutely delighting herself by the image of some casual coq au vin in a Tupperware container, but also because it is the most Nancy Meyers level of detail I’ve ever heard. So entirely rustic, so appropriately French, so utterly bougie - all in one emblematic dish tucked away in her fridge. It says something about Erica that no other line could. These seemingly unimportant lines, along with a long list of other Meyerisms (see below), constitute the ingredients with which Meyers is cooking. And we, as hungry viewers desperate for a film that gives us more than a story but an entire milieu, eat it up with a perfect artisan-crafted spoon we bought at Barefoot Contessa in 2001. 

Chances are you’ve seen a Nancy Meyers movie or two. She’s been around since the 1980s, when she co-wrote Private Benjamin with her then-husband Charles Shyer and Harvey Miller. Since those humble beginnings, Meyers has become deeply associated with the following; beautiful kitchens, the color white, successful women of a certain age, divorce, cashmere, bountiful bowls of food, tasteful baskets, large beds, black and/or white fonts, fluffy pajamas, children of divorce, wine, rugged men out of their element, a good turtleneck and trouser combo. Her movies smell like clean laundry and an $80 candle. Nora Ephron meets goop. Essentially, Meyers has created a visual language that speaks to intellectuals who are starved for cozy aesthetics. It’s in these details often relegated to fluff that the rewatchability of her movies emerge. 

I’m not the first person to sing the praises of Meyer’s carefully curated domestic universes, but Meyers finds the fact that people focus on the interior design of her films to be...frustrating. In a conversation with Mindy Kaling during the Producer’s Guild of America’s Produced By conference in 2019, Meyers posited that critics who give so much attention to the beauty of her production design are taking “cheap shots” and missing the point. Kaling suggested that perhaps “male writers focus on those aspects of the movie because they can’t relate to the central problems of your protagonists” which is a theory that probably holds a lot of water, but I’m not so sure that people’s obsession with her design is something that can be so easily written off. I understand Meyer’s annoyance with our fixation on her meticulous spaces, because a fixation on visual beauty often suggests a lack of attention to substance. But in my humble opinion, there is an abundance of both. And movies should be both. The beauty of her films are strengths, but the details, hidden in lines like Erica Barry’s or in the size of Erica’s bed or even the placement of her desk, are the keys to their rewatchability. If these movies were only design porn, then we wouldn’t be rewatching them over and over again (as evidenced by Home Again, produced by Meyers but written/directed by her daughter Hallie, which is an utter abomination with all the frills of great design and zero substance elsewhere). 

The details that make Nancy’s movies so rewatchable are the same details used as ammunition against her. Her work is akin to the superhero movies she battles at the box office; her character’s homes are symbols of their past, their successes, and their desires. They also boast an aspirational quality, which contributes to what makes them so wholly cravable, rewatchable, and yes, notably Pinterest worthy. She builds worlds in the same way a filmmaker of any Marvel movie does, giving the viewer new Easter eggs to be found time and time again. The psychology behind a cinematic Nancy Meyers home is rife with implication and denotation. Sure, it’s a “cheap shot” to call out the beauty of her sets, but that’s just it. They’re not just beautiful. They’re specific. They’re the epitome of show, don’t tell, which is why watching them over and over again makes for a new experience every time. So give in to Nancy! And to help you start, I’ve devised a guide, in the form of a ranking, of the films she’s written and directed (by herself) from least great to GOAT:

5. The Intern (2015) - Oh The Intern. If this movie is on TV, I will watch it with great fervor, but it unfortunately has some really shticky gags that just don’t land and feel like filler in an otherwise sweet film. Also, Anders Holm’s performance is notably bad. There is good though! The film is teeming with Nancy’s signature aesthetic; gorgeous kitchens, a powerful woman in charge, shots of food that provoke a Pavlovian response (I’m really curious about that car soup), all with a new Brooklyn twist! 

Design Rating: 9/10

Movie Rating: 5/10

4. The Holiday (2006) - The Holiday is great! There I said it, so now the fiery fans of this lovely Christmas movie won’t burn me at the stake. They are a ferocious bunch. The Holiday’s balance of the urban and the bucolic offers a truly pleasant experience, and you really can’t find a better foursome than Winslet, Black, Law and Diaz (and of course, a wonderful supporting performance from Eli Wallach). The only reason it sits low on the list is because the other movies, to me, are more iconic. I’m sorry! This movie is also really long….

Design Rating: 7/10

Movie Rating: 8/10

3. It’s Complicated (2009) - WOWOWOWOW. It’s Complicated is a true emblem of the Nancy Meyers universe, a cinematic substitute for a big bowl of pudding. The criossant dough bikini, Meryl’s bathtub, adults high on pot. However, there are some details in this movie that make it less rewatcheable than the rest of the lot. Namely, Streep and Baldwin’s whiny adult children. As a child of divorce myself, I can’t imagine being so upset by my parents having an affair ten years after they’ve divorced that I could be found crying in bed with my full-grown siblings. Anyway, of course we can count on Streep to make Jane Adler as effervescent and compelling as humanly possible. Baldwin’s performance is superb as well. But those kids. Yikes.

Design Rating:10/10

Movie Rating: 8/10

2. The Parent Trap (1998) - Meyers takes a prepubescent Lindsay Lohan, clones her, and then gives one each to Natasha Richardson and Dennis Quaid, resulting in a magical little movie with absolutely zero roots in realism. Like many of you, The Parent Trap was the first Nancy Meyers movie I ever saw. I wasn’t aware of her signature style yet but her innate sense of place and adept storytelling skills are evident. The Parent Trap was a perfect property for Meyers to reimagine. Thank you Nancy, for making sure people my age think of Napa and London when they thing of The Parent Trap. A very Nancy Meyers thing to do. 

Design Rating: 9/10

Movie Rating:9/10

1. Something’s Gotta Give (2003) - The perfect Nancy Meyers film, with all the necessary accoutrements. A love story so thoughtfully done, with depth and nuance, which basically made way for stories about women who aren’t necessary looking for love but find themselves stumbling into it. Turns out watching Diane Keaton (in an Oscar nominated performance) as a thinly veiled version of Meyers herself opposite Jack Nicholson is exactly what the heart desires. Of course, this film suffers from the same issue that It’s Complicated does, that of the whiny child of divorce, but at least Amanda Peet’s Marin is self-aware enough to acknowledge how ridiculous she’s being. Also, a totally underrated performance by Frances McDormand, and of course, Keanu. 

Design Rating: 10/10

Movie Overall: 10/10