Starring: Michael Douglas, Diane Keaton, Sterling Jerins, Yaya DaCosta, Andy Karl, and Frances Sternhagen.

Directed By: Rob Reiner

There are different levels to this movie. This is very much a layer cake. Most movies start out good, and get worse. This movie started off… awful. I thought I was going to fail this movie. Seriously. The song they played in the opening credits made me want to throw monkeys at the screen. Live monkeys, not dead ones. I’m not insane.

Oh God, then came the girl playing little Sara. She’s never had an acting coach in her life. She learned on the set, obviously. I was so grateful that Wish I Was Here had good child actors, and then this poor thing shows up. She’s terrible. She’s looking around for direction, and she basically just parks and barks her lines.

And Douglas is just so damn unlikeable, it’s almost impossible to want him and Keaton to get together by the end of the film. But somehow, through the magic of Diane Keaton, who is also playing a rather unlikeable character, I felt sorry for her, and her lonely self. Plus, they made a good grandparent pair for the little girl. But these two couldn’t be more different, and probably shouldn’t get married or raise kids together. They are opposites that shouldn’t attract.

I don’t know why by the end of the movie I was  invested. I was invested in characters I hated, in a movie I despise, played by actors I love. I remember watching The Big Wedding and thinking that it was impossible to hate a movie with that cast. I think the same thing happened here. It is by no means a great film. I’d rather see it again than Godzilla. There’s something easy about And So It Goes, and it has a subtlety about it that makes you care about people you hate.

On another note, it is completely OK to be depressed about the demise of Douglas and Keaton’s careers that they would sign onto this garbage in the first place. And Rob Reiner? Shame. Shame on you. Oh, and Marc Shaiman did the music? WHERE? What a waste of a good composer.

I did hear an old lady crying a bit in the theatre with me, at the end, so maybe old people like it. That’s their target demo anyway.

FINAL GRADE: C-