Nancy Meyers is a quality, traditional director that solely uses her actors' performances and the strict scene sequencing to tell her stories. There's no beating around the bush and she's straight to the point.
I would say that there are times when the editing work is not smooth, revealing some weak transitioning from the actor's part as they get into a scene from the word "action". Or at least that's how I see it.
And probably because of this, her actors need to be top-notched or their individual flaws will be very obvious.
Luckily, here we have a group of brilliant actors led by Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway, with support from Rene Russo, Adam DeVine, Zack Pearlman, Christina Scherer; and even young JoJo Kushner was a class act (though the part written for her was a little too perfect).
Going through the list of actors, I just remembered that Nat Wolff only appeared in a couple of very short scenes. I wonder why he was even included at all as it didn't feel like a cameo.
What I truly appreciated Meyers writing was that the story carried so much heart and soul. At no point in time did the plot dipped into something corny. The flow was so smooth that nothing was thrown into the audience's face or that we were forced to swallow.
There were a couple of times when I thought De Niro's character would go one way but then Meyers surprised me as, not only did it went completely in another direction, but it again was presented to smoothly that we just couldn't help but fall in love with that character. And I loved De Niro's acting completely in this one.
Hathaway again was superb. She made her character believable and human. Once again she just showed why she's one of the greats of our time.
The humour stood out very much in this story. I enjoyed everything except the setup of Hathaway's character with her mother. All that back-and-forth felt a bit forced, but of course the payoff was great.
What I would have liked to see was Meyers to have a little bit of edge, because everything was just so smooth. There's no sense of danger or peril and even at the end, we knew exactly the choices that would be made by Meyers' characters.
Also, the last scene when De Niro "took a day off", that was really out of character and was a bit too convenient for my taste.
But I remember the whole cinema was just enthralled by the sweetness of it all and everyone was really in a good mood as they walked out of the cinema. So even though there were room for improvement, this was still a very satisfying watch that's suitable for all ages.
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