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November 9, 2003
LIVES
Sex and the Single Older Woman
By NANCY MEYERS as told to AMY BARRETT

[T] his is the first time I've written an original screenplay by myself. If I'm not ready at 53, I'll never be. I used to work in collaboration with my now ex-husband, Charles Shyer. We would talk for months, and when we hit on something, we'd write it down. ''Private Benjamin'' came out in 1980. I wrote that with Charles and Harvey Miller. After that, I wrote ''Irreconcilable Differences'' with Charles, and then we wrote the ''Father of the Bride'' movies and ''The Parent Trap.'' Collaboration is great for screenwriting. It's not as simple as two heads are better than one, but if you find the right person, you can feed off each other. But I don't think I could have collaborated on my latest film, ''Something's Gotta Give.'' I had an idea about a man who chronically dates younger women, who meets the mother of a girl he's dating. This was more personal than other films I've written. I don't think I would have been that open.

I have a friend, an older man, who dates women much younger than himself. I was always truly fascinated by it. I felt invisible around him. The older I got, the more interesting the subject matter became to me, but I wasn't really ready to write anything on the subject. Then I got divorced. Suddenly I became part of the story of single older people.

What interested me about my friend was that his wanting a young woman was as much about him not wanting a woman his own age. He's gone through his 40's and 50's, but the girls stay the same age -- that's the history I gave to Jack Nicholson in ''Something's Gotta Give.'' He and his current flame go to the Hamptons to consummate their relationship. Just as they arrive at her family's beach house, her mother, played by Diane Keaton, comes in the back door. Neither knew that the other would be there. After dinner, Jack goes to the guest room with the daughter, and the mother and the aunt are talking about them in the kitchen. At first, they think they hear screams of passion. Then her daughter cries, ''Mom!'' They run in, and Jack's character is having a heart attack. Later, he recuperates at her house after getting out of the hospital. The daughter has gone back to work; the aunt has, too. So the mother is the only game in town. It's just the two of them, and they have an affair. I always thought, What if a guy like this was stranded on a desert island with me? Would I let him get to know me?

I wrote this movie for Diane Keaton and Jack Nicholson. I met with them both because I really like writing for specific actors. When I pitched it to her, she -- typical Diane -- said: ''I love it. No one will make it. No one will make a movie about someone my age falling in love.'' I said, ''I'm going to write it for you anyway.'' And I directed it too.

Working with my ex-husband, I had trained myself to talk out loud and bounce things off him. Sitting in a room by myself, I didn't exactly know how to do it. So I put my end of the conversation in writing. The more I personalized it, the longer it became. I didn't have him there to tell me that part is no good, so it ended up being long. The outline was 88 pages, and it translated into a 250-page draft. No movie can work at that length, so I shaved away some things that were fabulous really only to me.

When I was writing this movie, I treated myself a bit like an actor. I motivated myself to get choked up when I had to write something where the characters are upset. I would listen to Shelby Lynne, some Ben Webster and some Eric Clapton. Shelby Lynne sort of related to the brokenhearted-girl thing, and Ben Webster I found very romantic, and that helps sometimes. Clapton would just get me upset -- I don't know why.

I won't go so far as to say this movie is a fantasy, except I have Keanu Reeves, who is the emergency-room doctor, and Jack Nicholson both fall in love with a 55-year-old woman. The man played by Jack finds himself drawn to her romantically and sexually, but later he questions it. He has just had a heart attack; he's not sure if his feelings are sort of like falling in love with your nurse. Would he really be interested under normal circumstances? All that is real. But the fact that the E.R. doctor comes along at the same time and is utterly taken with her and loves that he's drawn to her -- personally I haven't experienced that in a 36-year-old man. Do I think somebody could be drawn to the Diane Keaton character? Yeah. Is it a fantasy that he's being played by Keanu? Yes. And the fact that Jack's character comes around at the end -- is that a fantasy? I hope not.

I attended group sessions with heart-attack survivors and asked the guys what it's like. Some would go buy a Porsche or sell their businesses -- hearing how they changed their lives made me believe Jack's character could surprise himself and fall for a woman his own age. I'm aware that my movie is very hopeful. But all I know is since I made ''Something's Gotta Give,'' men on the crew and others have told me that they are now dating women their age -- not because of the movie but perhaps coincidentally. They say it's nothing like they have ever felt -- something about it is pretty great. It's probably very relaxing for them to not have to be 35 in bed when they are 55, you know?