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Anti-Fan Fiction: Heartburn

MerylStreep1Am I the only person on the planet who is not taken in by the charms of Meryl Streep? Whenever I see her get weepy and red-eyed in a drama, I want to run away. Whenever she’s being quirky in a comedy, I can’t bring myself to watch. I have never seen Mama Mia! Can you fucking believe it?? I should turn in my Midwesterner Membership card.

But the movie Heartburn takes the Streep cake. (OK, there’s that “A dingo at my baby,” movie, too.)

I think anytime you’re beginning with revenge fantasy material, you’re in murky waters. Heartburn, in case you aren’t aware, is the “fictional” story of a woman who is cheated on by her husband while she’s pregnant with their second child. I say fictional in quotation marks because it’s really the thinly-disguised bio-pic of Nora Ephron, who was cheated on by Bob Woodward while pregnant with their second child and then wrote the novel Heartburn. Who can really blame her for writing it? They say, “Write what you know,” and when what you know is sensational and revenge-driven, well, it’s gonna sell books and tickets and eventually you’re going to get to make Sleepless in Seattle.

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