I'M NOT GOING TO SAY anything snarky about Meryl Streep in this review of her new momedy, It's Complicated. Streep is perfectly charming here, totally comfortable in the everywoman mantle she dons to play Jane, a divorced mother of three. Jane is sweet but grounded, sexy in a totally natural and age-appropriate way, and so likeable that it's totally plausible when her ex-husband Jake (Alec Baldwin) decides he wants to get back together. It's Complicated hinges on Jane's struggle between her attraction to Jake and her unwillingness to forgo the life she built for herself in his absence. Oh, and Steve Martin sad-sacks around too, asking Jane on dates and looking like a burn victim.

It's Complicated isn't a great film. (At one point, one of Jane's friends shares a story she "read on the internet" about a woman who went without sex for so long, her vagina grew back together. That's titillating conversation for 10-year-olds who have yet to read Where Did I Come From?, not among grownups.) But it's the time of year when concessions are made: Odds are, you'll be doing some family bonding in the cineplex this month, and It's Complicated is a not-too-embarrassing movie about romance and families and finding oneself. I mean no disrespect to your mother when I assure you that she will like it.