It's Complicated stars Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin as a middle-aged couple who start an affair - 10 years after they got divorced.
Streep plays mother-of-three Jane, who owns a bakery and restaurant in Santa Barbara, California, and is on good terms with her ex-husband Jake (Baldwin).
The old flame begins to flicker again when they stay at the same hotel in New York for their son Luke's graduation, and end up reminiscing about their 19-year marriage over a drink or three.
With attorney Jake now married to a younger woman, Agness (Lake Bell), Jane soon becomes the "other woman".
Things get even more complicated when it turns out that the architect helping to build Jane's dream kitchen, played by Steve Martin, is ever so slightly in love with her.
The film has garnered a whole slew of Golden Globe nominations, ahead of this year's awards season, including Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical for Streep, Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy, and Best Screenplay for writer/director Nancy Meyers.
Baldwin believes Meyers, who brought us Baby Boom, Father Of The Bride and What Women Want, has created something more mature than the standard romcom.
"To me Nancy's movies are adult romantic comedies - they're a little more honest than young people's romantic comedies," he says.
"Romantic comedies for young people seem to be a little crazy to me - everybody is doing incredibly stupid things to try and get a laugh. And it is funny, but when you're appealing to an older audience, you need to be a little more dramatic, because the stakes are higher.
"But at the same time you have to keep it light, it is a weird balance to strike and Nancy is so good at that kind of movie."
Meryl Streep has recently carved herself a comedy niche, with memorable roles in Mamma Mia! and last summer's Julie And Julia, for which she's also been nominated at the Golden Globes, meaning that she's competing against herself in the Best Actress in a Comedy or Musical category.
She was the actress Meyers had in mind to play Jane - and she instantly loved the script and the screenwriter's sensitivity to such a universal subject.
"[She has] tapped into something deep about families who've encountered divorce... or anybody who has been abandoned by someone they love," says Streep.
But it was the draw of her leading men that proved irresistible. "They're just so wildly and inventively funny, I love them both," she says of Martin and Baldwin.
"They're not just willing to be funny, they're willing to reveal themselves, which is not always that easy.
"Steve has a very graceful presence and Alec embraces the process, embraces everybody he encounters. Everyone felt that on set, he's like a big magnet and he pulls you into his magic sphere."
Off-screen, the lead actors have had very different experiences of love and relationships. While Baldwin, 51, was locked in a seven-year custody battle with his ex-wife Kim Basinger, following their divorce in 2002, Streep, who turned 60 this summer, has been married to her husband for more than 30 years.
But she was still able to empathise with Jane - who has three grown-up children, compared to Streep's four - and her unconventional love life.
"Starting a new relationship as an older person, I think you are probably just more aware of the red flags that are there, because you've been in trouble before. You are a little bit more cautious and sensitive and you pick up signals more easily."
And, like Jane, she is also now an empty-nester. "There are times when you think, will [the children] ever be gone, will I ever be able to go out again? But then it is quiet. Although our youngest still comes home a lot at the weekend."
Over the years, she says her children have helped her to get into roles. "I'm sure I bring my life experience to the way I relate to [characters in films], especially the kids.
"But I don't really take my work home with me and say 'I'm having trouble with a scene, what do you think?' No."
While 15-times Oscar nominee and double winner Streep may well see a 16th nomination this year, if the Golden Globes are anything to go by, her co-stars Martin and Baldwin will be teaming up to host the glamorous awards show in March.
"I'm grateful I'm doing it with Steve, he's done it twice before," says Baldwin. "But even if I wasn't doing it, I'm glad he's doing it, because it needs to be funny."
He's keeping mum on who might win one of the prestigious gongs, but he does speculate about the Best Director category.
"Many people think Kathryn Bigelow might get nominated [for The Hurt Locker]. If she wins, she will be the first woman to ever win an Academy Award as a director. So there are lots of interesting possibilities this year.
"They have the 10 different films as Best Picture, they have expanded that category, they have two hosts for the first time...
"We had our first meeting with the producers the other day and we have to come up with about half an hour of funny stuff."
As for his career post-Oscar night, the 30-Rock star is keen to slow down.
"I have another year of 30-Rock to do, we are in syndication, so we'll probably do a fifth season. Then after that is our sixth season, we all signed for six years. So by the time we finish that I'm 53 years old.
"It's not that I don't like what I'm doing, it's just with whatever time I have left there are other things I want to do.
"Working in this business is very time-consuming and you have to want to do this at the exclusion of anything else you want to do and I'm not sure I feel that way any more."
Last year Baldwin published a book called A Promise To Ourselves, which charted his battle for joint custody of his daughter and critiqued the US family law system.
"Nothing is as satisfying as writing in terms of saying what you want to say. Acting in TV and films, you're saying other people's words - if you want to have real force behind your self-expression, you paint or write.
"And I think writing is definitely something I might want to do more of and just take a break from [acting], indefinitely maybe. I have done it so long."
Streep, on the other hand, shows no signs of wanting to retire. There are rumours of several films afoot and, whether they are romantic comedies or dramas, whatever she chooses will no doubt be well received.
The key to her longevity? Not taking life too seriously. "If you get to a certain age and you aren't laughing at yourself, you haven't recognised all the things that are funny," she says.
Extra time - It's Complicated
Nancy Meyers says she wrote It's Complicated because she was drawn to the subject of the "post-divorce world that many exes find themselves in and how their relationship, in many ways, never ends".
The star of the American version of The Office, John Krasinski, plays Jane and Jake's son-in-law to be Harley, who discovers the pair are having an affair.
Meyers admits that she uses elements of her own life in her writing, but finds it easier to experiment with her characters than do things herself.
Steve Martin had worked with Meyers already on the Father Of The Bride films. The director wrote the role of Adam, a recently divorced architect, especially for Martin. "She writes quirkiness very well without it looking too exaggerated," he says.
All of Martin's scenes had to be completed in the first two months of filming as he was due to go on tour to promote his CD of banjo tunes: The Crow: New Songs For The Five-String Banjo. Needless to say, his banjo was a staple form of on-set entertainment.
