Befuddled lovers rejoice! During Woody's London excursion, we return you to your regularly scheduled Jewish neurotics, New York romantics and blonde shiksa goddesses.
Prime—a Woody in a minor key—is your cup of cherry Manischewitz, a sweetly funny, if familiar rom-com ruminating on dating, aging and cultural divides among Gothamites. And it's a treat to watch Streep tap her sillier side.
She's the encouraging Jewish therapist; charmingly vulnerable Thurman is her depressed (and gentile), late-thirtysomething patient on the cusp of divorce, pouring out her insecurities; and scruffy, affable Greenberg is the early-twentysomething hunk who re-revs Thurman's engine. The complication: Streep is Greenberg's Seriously Jewish Mommy/Yenta, noodging him not to dabble in dating outside of the tribe.
But once Dr. Be-Good-To-Yourself learns the truth—before her son knows his girlfriend is her patient, who doesn't know her doctor is her lover's mother—Streep and Thurman's sessions become Dr. Mommy's nightmare: Confessions of My Baby's Horny, Sexually Insatiable Girlfriend.
"He's got a beautiful penis!" Thurman giggles. "He makes me want to do things I've never done before. Oy, a mother's ears! You shouldn't know from such tsoris!
Mamma gets heart palpitations struggling with her personal secret and professional ethics, and Streep plays reactive comedy like a Stradivarius—the quieter, the funnier. With her clueless patient a goyish gusher of everything she never wanted to know about her son's sex life and never cared to ask, Streep's face registers every wince and flinch as her therapist stoicism crumbles into maternal embarrassment.
There's a heart and mind behind the tittering, even if writer-director Younger cribs 'em from the Woody playbook: After the cool-down of their sexual supernova ("we made love on every surface in my apartment!" Thurman squeals, to Streep's dismay), they question if love and passion can conquer age and maturity differences.
Thurman, securely employed, burned in marriage, approaching 40 and desperate for children, succumbs to the thrills (and guilt) of a young lover, but her needs threaten her contentment. He, a Nintendo-playing, unemployed artist living with his granny while hanging out with enjoyably goofy Jon Abrahams is still part-adolescent.
Some hurdles can be cleared. Some can't. Some look like a Woody-lite Manhattan in reverse, family stereotypes intact. But bubbelah, who couldn't enjoy a Jewish grandmother greeting her grandson's girlfriend by banging herself in the head with a frying pan?