This 2003 Oscar-nominated movie begins when successful entrepreneur Harry (Jack Nicholson), is asked to accompany the young and lovely Marin (Amanda Peet) to her mother’s unoccupied beach house in the Hamptons.
Harry is a womanizer who prefers women decades his junior, blah blah this is the kitchen of the Hamptons’ beach house:
As young Marin changes into her swimsuit and Harry places the wine in the fridge to chill, suddenly there is activity at the back door. It’s Erica (Diane Keaton), returning home with her sister Zoe (Frances McDormand).
Letting the awkward situation get the best of them, everyone threatens to leave. But soon they decide they are all adults who can get along for one night—and so they spend tons of money in a gourmet food market and return home to prepare spaghetti with clam sauce.
But the dinner conversation is not smooth—Harry is challenged with the theory that men can remain bachelors into old age and are rewarded with young dates, while single aging women become the objects of pity. Harry and the young Marin retire to their bedroom, leaving Erica and her sister to wash the dishes.
But suddenly Erica and her sister hear a scream—it’s young Marin calling for help because Harry has just keeled over with a heart attack! Once in the emergency room, he falls under the care of a doctor named Julian (Keanu Reeves), who flirts with the much-older Erica, blah blah Harry isn’t well enough to travel home blah so he is placed under reluctant Erica’s care and returned to the beach house.
Within hours everyone else leaves to return to the city, and Erica is frustrated because she’s in the process of writing a play, and the last thing she needs is Harry and his distractions. “It’s OK, I can do this,” says Erica. “I’ll get myself into a Zen place. Play music, cook, write, focus.”
But as Erica tries to work, she is interrupted by Harry’s ceaselessly ringing telephone and rap music and the waft of his cigars:
The next day the cute young doctor makes a house call—and after examining Harry, he corners Erica in the kitchen and tells her he has a crush:
Meanwhile Erica and Harry are getting to know each other a bit better, and as Erica prepares for her date with the young doctor, an interesting thing happens: Harry begins to see Erica with fresh eyes. And not just due to her form-fitting dress:
After Erica’s date, she and Harry lie in opposing bedrooms sending each other flirty Instant Messages, until the two resolve to meet in the late-night kitchen for a snack:
But just as Erica prepares the pancake batter without properly measuring her ingredients even though Bossy has never heard of this in her entire life, Erica’s daughter, young Marin, returns from the city to check on Harry.
But instantly young Marin catches the vibe that she has interrupted more than poorly measured pancakes, and she is happy for her mother. And so the next morning Marin breaks up with Harry while Erica watches from her kitchen window.
With Marin out of the picture, Erica and Harry enjoy a picnic on the beach that is interrupted by rain. The two race home, dodging lightening, and close the door against the threatening storm.
They lose electricity and waste no time falling into each other’s arms, and falling into each other’s other.
But the afterglow doesn’t last long, because the next day Harry is cleared to return to his home in New York City. He packs up and says goodbye as Erica waves him down her long driveway.
But before you know it, Erica is racing into the city too because blah blah and she has dinner with blah and in that very restaurant she sees Harry—and he is once again dining with a very young and beautiful woman.
Erica and Harry have it out and Harry admits he doesn’t know how to be a boyfriend—and so Erica returns home to the Hamptons, where she thrashes around, mourning the death of their relationship:
Erica cries here, she cries there—until one day her sister Zoe bumps into the young doctor at a farmer’s market, and she brings him home to dine with Erica. This distraction helps, because in no time, Erica is ditching her Kleenex and finishing her play, which she has turned into a comedy about Harry:
And just who do you think is there, stretched out on the comfortable sofa, to celebrate the completion of Erica’s play?
Will Erica stay with the doctor? Will she reunite with Harry? Will Bossy ever get her light-filled kitchen with flat-black door pulls?
Has Bossy been inside Acher’s head? Because when Acher dreams about kitchens, it’s nearly the exact same dream. Acher would, however, be willing to sacrifice ALOT of the details if someone would just give her the GIANT Sub Zero (can I have glass doors on that?) and the big mama dual fuel, double oven, griddle and 6 burners Wolf range. Oh, and have you SEEN the wok burner they make?!?!?
i kind of hate it when someone’s kitchen is bigger than my entire apartment. *sigh*
but i wouldn’t mind having a young doctor spread out on my lovely pistachio-colored sofa. especially if that doctor looked like keanu. *swoon*
It’s a gorgeous kitchen. I read it was a set and has been long since torn down. I know this because I wanted to visit it then convince it to come home with me. Alas, it’s pretend.
Gaaack! Thank you for the synopsis and interior design guide to this movie, because I will never watch another filum with Jack Nicholson in it. Am I the only one creeped out by watching his crepey neck necking with some sweet young Helen Hunt or Amanda Tweet thang? Shudder, shudder.
I”m impressed that Bossy was able to recount the basic story line, enflamed with lust as she was over all the decor.
I’d take Keanu over Jack any time. Any. Time.
In fact, I wouldn’t take Jack even if he came with a house like this.
Keanu? No house required.
I DID just watch Jack in “Mars Attacks” where he wasn’t entwined with a sweet young thing. He was the smarmy but doofus president aiming for comforting fireside chats with America while swell-headed Martians ravaged our fair country. He was also the smarmy but savvy Las Vegas developer but only one of us recognized him as that. We kept shouting that one down, disagreeing, until the credits showed the double billing and he was vindicated. VERY funny movie. Revisit it. Lots of small parts by now-big stars. Only Jack Nicholson movie I’d recommend.
But I digress. Nice photos of the TV, Bossy.
yeah, I remember when I saw that movie I was all about the kitchen, totally agree w/the Other Lisa, and yes to Keanu Reeves, but only if he never tries to recite Shakespeare.
“Much Ado About Nothing”, anyone?
Having a problem here with kitchen envy. Any kitchen…
I could fit my whole houseboat in that SINK!
This is so much better than the movie. I hope that from now on you will do Bossy Versions of ALL movies I half-watch, so that I don’t have to other-half-watch them.
oh, i love that house. more than i loved the movie. that house, oh that house!! its own character. gorgeous.
Oh, that farmhouse sink. My entire dream kitchen is built around a sink like that. It’s kind of depressing that people really live in houses like that.
I thought I liked the movie a lot, but THIS is even better.
NOt even close. I’ll take that kitchen with attached house any day over both men and both women.
Insight to why I’m alone!!!
Bossy and I have the same taste in men … and kitchens, and houses, furnishings and views!
I loved reading this lusty rendition of the architectural turn-ons in this film! Forget the movie itself!
Looking forward to more of the same!
Oh yeah, I love it too when people in movies just happen to live in fantastic houses. It’s even better when it looks like they never go to work either. How many Americans actually live this way?!
I would date Jack N. for that kitchen…and ewwww…he’s like my grandfather’s age!
Yeah, yeah, yeah: kitchen, kitchen, kitchen. What about the reunion scene at the end at Le Grand Colbert in Paris? Now THAT’s worth drooling over.
I wonder if a farmhouse sink will make my butt look small like Diane’s?
forgiving, cool, and black – *snort*
I watch that movie every time it’s on and my poor husband has to listen to me go on and on and on about the house for the whole thing. And also when I watch the Barefoot Contessa on the food network.
OK Bossy – how come it seems like every movie Diane Keaton is in has a kitchen/house like that? Will you next analyze the kitchen/house from “The Family Stone” and then “Father of the Bride” (Part 1 and 2 ) and then compare/contrast to the kitchen/house from “Something’s Gotta Give?” And then draw some Bossy-like conclusions from your analysis? Sounds like a friggin’ thesis paper to me – you’ll have your PhD before you know it…or maybe you already have one….sure seems like it….
Hi.La.RIOUS!
I hear you, sister. That is one mighty fine gorgeous looking damn expensive and sinfully chic house.
Love the movie, LURVE the house.
Jack is my hero!!!! An old—dirty old—man.
And Diane Keaton???? Would that my Daughters will look as good when they are that old!!!!!
Gramps
PS——I loved the movie for all of the above reasons. (Never really noticed the decor before)
Loved today’s post Bossy.
Bossy is not old enough to have ever watched a TV show that was on in the late 70’s called “Family” but I can tell you that 30 years later I can still remember my deep and devoted passion to the character I loved the most – the house! http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3550188032/tt0073992
How, exactly, does a playwrite afford a bazillion dollar home in the Hamptons? Is she Andrew Lloyd Webber? Did she rob a bank? Oh, wait. That was that other god-awful movie Diane was in…
or that Diane Keaton who is what 60-something and still lots good without her clothes!
I too found this house to be a truly orgasmic element of this movie. I looooved it. So much. It really did distract from the whole story line.
I’d take young Dr. too, but the house. Oh The House.
When my mother was younger she looked exactly like Diane Keaton. Also, you could fit my mother’s condo seven times over in that kitchen.
They also call those sinks “Apron” sinks. Great movie…great kitchen, great house!
I have seen this movie several times and NOT ONCE have I not been distracted by my lust for that house!!!
Somthing’s Gotta Give = pure, unadulturated house-porn.
Bossy’s got great (albeit very expensive) tase!
For now I’ll just have to settle for my bright asparagus green kitchen with old-laminate floors.
I wonder how many boxes of wine versus bottles of 1.5 liters of wine versus more delicious-tasting yet far more expensive bottles of 750 mL’s of wine would fit into that farm-house sink in Diane Keaton’s Hamptons home? Wait…this isn’t the poverty post . 😉
Bossy should actually come out to the Hampton’s, JP at Plumber’s Crack could give her a tour of those exact kinds of houses and ALL of the Kitchen Appliances…………..If you like the Kitchen, you should see some of the bathrooms we install!!!!
Great recap of the movie. I agree: Erica’s house is the sh*t! I think I’d be inspired to write with an office like that, too
I watched that movie simply because of the house. (Love the living room.)
The only good part of that movie was the house and the laptop.
Hated the movie, ADORED the house. Also love the house in “Father of the Bride”. Maybe Diane Keaton needs to come decorate my house!!lol
that kitchen is very similar to my sister’s kitchen on the cape. It’s always very hard to leave her house and come home to mine. 🙂
I think this is one of those movies I hated because I’m always jealous of the homes/apts/lofts/cabins that “movie people” inhabit, even lowly BIKE MESSENGERS and BARISTAS that could never afford huge lofts with views of bridges and cityscapes.
But at least Diane Keaton showed us her ta-tas, so it was not a tital, sorry TOTAL loss.
Upon viewing this movie with my mother this weekend I let her know that I was damned to a life of marriage procreation because she did not provide me with this beach house while I was Marin’s age…. where I could have landed/bedded a rich music mogul and lived lustfully ever after. She didn’t seem to care.
House porn is way better than people porn.
So says the pregnant lady.
It’s so nice to read a blogger who has her priorities straight. I {heart} bossy. Although I have to say that the dark floor in my kitchen sucks. The only way I find anything that drops is with my FEET when I STEP on it. Though perhaps that is more because my kitchen is a very poorly executed downscale version of this dreamy one.
Excellent recap. Now I can fast-forward through next time and just look at the house.
Bossy can have the damn kitchen! Just as long as I get the young doctor.
This is one of my favorite movies. But I’m more swept away by the house than anything else. I love that house.
That’s my favorite movie too. Not for plot, characters, blah blah blah. But for the house. Oh my CHRIST, the HOUSE.
Fer chrissake.
I totally agree – the first time I saw the movie I TOOK notes on the house
counters = cool, forgiving, and black
obama = cool, forgiving, and black
counters = obama?
I LOVE this moooovie! The house, the settings….. plus it was the movie we went to see the evening of the day I found I was expecting my first baby so it has all the feel-good factors for me 🙂
Would love a kitchen like that – unfortunately that kitchen is about the size of that kitchen so probably not to be just yet… maybe when I’m a millionaire…
a girl can dream.
Ah yes Bossy… watched this with my Mum and we CONSTANTLY paused the movie to check out the windowns, and the kitchen cupboards, and the decor.
Divine. *Sigh*
You are soooooooo perceptive!
🙂
BB
PS In case you are wondering, a ‘windown’ is a the same thing in AUstalia as America.
A typo.
*Sheesh*!
The soundtrack is actually pretty good – jazzy stuff in French – and some movie ambiance for a bargain basement price.
Aaaaand, Bossy just helped Andrea to discover where her sister in law got the inspiration for the fabulous kitchen she had built last year, claiming she designed it herself!
Oh yeah – gotta love the classic colors & the space. I was inspired a few yrs ago by Gosford Park – The “downstairs” area was all cream with shiny black doors – so elegant.
If you’re looking for a good seafoam color, check out Sherwin Williams “Sea Salt”. It’s a great background for everything. Dark furniture looks great against it.
Ummmm, yeah. I can only dream of having a kitchen even remotely close to that! I’m the lady with the circa 1974 Carol Brady orange counter tops, the linoleum that has a 2 x 3 hole gouged out, plywood-type cabinets with the finish worn off and cabinet pulls on only 4 of the cupboard doors. I’d take Kramer’s kitchen over mine!
First of all, I love Frances McDormand.
Second of all, spaghetti with clam sauce? Whoever heard of *spaghetti* with clam sauce? Any self-respecting clam sauce rests happily and responsibly atop a steaming mound of *linguine*.
This is my all time favorite “rewind and look at each detail of the house” movie. I love everything about her desk (the chair, the Mac, the old desk), though I have issues with having my back to the door/room. I always opt for the perpendicular desk/window placement. It’s much better karma. Thanks, Bossy. I haven’t watched this one for a while!
I loved this movie. A post-coital kitchen is definitely the best type of kitchen to have.
There was a kitchen?
We used to have that sink. Couldn’t wait to get a proper stainless steel one.
Now, Bossy, this is real progress.
The fact that your latest boyfriend is a countertop and that your newest husband is a bay of windows is definitely progress, indeed.
Bossy, you should probably see and fall in love with my favorite movie-star house, which appears in The Hand That Rocks the Cradle with Rebecca DeMornay. That house is character-filled and funky, yet stunning, and you’d probably see more resemblance to your own home.
They HAD to have a fab kitchen and adjoining house in that movie so that it could all stand up properly to Diane Keaton who is a goddess of beauty, filled with chic, and more elegant than is fair to the rest of us.
Bossy missed the recap of the naked Diane Keaton being accidentally viewed by the HARRY. Best part (Other than the obvious kitchen okay house)
I dream of that house, no shit….
“post coital kitchen”? I spit Diet Dr. Pepper on the keyboard again.
This one had me *lol* – I love how Bossy tells a movie. I see Bossy’s own light-flooding windows (like the ones in Erica’s fabulous kitchen) reflecting off Bossy’s t.v. screen!
As of lately, I am late reading all blog posts but I thought this was a good one. I loved that movie. And I so agree about the whole house. It was above and beyond a dream! 😀 I need to go watch this again. Is this about her wearing turtlenecks too? God, that was funny!
Story of my life!! Minus the amazing kitchen, the raging success and the hot man.
Damn, can’t win ’em all.
we must be soul sisters. i just watched this movie for the 34986739th time today and thought to myself “my gawt i want that house! that kitchen! ohhhh that kitchen!”
and yeah, i just flat out love the movie
Bossy I have watched that movie at least 10 times and honest to God I couldn’t recall most of the plot you described. The sad fact of the matter is, I watch it for that house. Every single time. Plot? Blah, blah….
The one thing not mentioned here that I looooovvvved about the house in this movie (and which has ruined all other houses for me) is the seemingly endless supply of built-in bookshelves. Oh. Mah. Gah. A home replete with built-in bookshelves is one I would never, ever, EVER leave. Swoon.
A Keanu Reeves Home Accessory Package wouldn’t hurt either.
Yes, I said Keanu Reeves and package in the same sentence. Which wasn’t originally intended at all in a porn-y fashion but now that it’s out there, that is EXACTLY what I meant.
Oh yeah. Bookshelves. Swooon.
I saw that film in the theatre with my chick flick friend, who happens to be a professional kitchen and bath designer. We both voted that kitchen our very very favorite. And look at the ones she does: http://www.cassiadesign.com/ One of them is her own kitchen, which I covet. Sigh.
This made my day. Amazing house- oh the kitchen…
I didn’t know you liked your men black.
KEEP BELIEVING
So Funny! I watch that movie over and over so I can covet that house! It’s my dream house!
Now instead of writing papers I can ponder what my taste in countertops says about my taste in men, since I prefer soapstone- greenish-gray, easily scarred, easy to remove all traces of said scarring- oy vey!
I love that house. The sad part is, my in-laws live in the fooking Hampton’s (the po section) and my father in law works for many rich people care-taking their beautiful summer beach homes of which I have seen the insides of some, and omigod, I die
What is it about white walls and dark floors that make me want to swoon with ecstasy?
Keanu does NOTHING for me, but that house does. Everything about it, all the windows, the appliances, everything. Thanks for reminding me. I need to break up with my house now and find this one…
Shoot. Now I have to rent the flippin movie to see the house. No! I mean how it ends. Thanks.
…and you haven’t even gotten to the part about PARIS yet.
Fortunately, I watched You’ve Got Mail right before SGTG.
I lusted for Diane’s house the first time I saw this movie, especially the kitchen. What a relief to know I am not the only one. HGTV should give the set designer his/her own show fer chrissakes. All the white, the glass, french doors, the sweet draw pulls and the dark countertops…orgasmic. Frances McDormand was awesome in the movie (as always), and I liked Diane too. Not a bad romantic comedy, but the house completely stole the show. You write the funniest movie reviews EVAH. Love ya.
I think it is absolutly funny that ALL OF US lust after the same damn house! Everytime I talk to someone about my favorite kitchen I have to ask….have you seen this movie, blah blah blah! I LOVE IT! Everything about it I love…and want it so freakiin bad that I’ll sell my husband for it! Any offers?
Wow. Somehow I saw that piece of misogynist #$#@( when I was too young to care about kitchens. I did, however, notice that while Diane Keaton looks divine in her autumn years, Jack Nicholson is truly disgusting. The only scene I remember is his, ugh, butt hanging, ugh, out of his hospital gown. Yech. Not even for a kitchen, which I now care about…
Okay, I was never sure why I liked that movie so much but now I know it’s because I also have a huge crush on that house!
I think there is something about Diane Keaton. I LOVED the house in ‘Father of the Bride’ parts 1 & 2. I still compare that house to all others. I also loved the farmhouse she bought in Baby Boom where she fell in love with the vet.
I think that if I just stalk her for awhile that maybe her film luck of having great kitchens will rub off on me. Your thoughts?
I can relate. I’ve watched “The Holiday” sheepishly SEVERAL times just so I can enjoy a little house candy. Cameron Diaz’s house in LA…..yum.