Nancy Meyers’ “It’s Complicated” is the kind of movie I would happily have sent my late mother to see: a little bawdy (but not too bawdy), a little naughty (but not too), funny enough, with lots of moments that would make her nod and say, “That’s so true.” The kind of movie she would have walked out of saying, “That was soooo cute.”

In other words, “It’s Complicated” isn’t really complicated at all. It’s exactly the kind of middlebrow entertainment that attracts people who no longer go to movies – because it seems like the kind of movie they no longer make.

In fact, they do. It’s just that most of them star someone like Matthew McConaughey or Kate Hudson or someone else the 45+ audience has no interest in seeing. Meyers’ stroke of brilliance is in writing that kind of film and then casting it with “prestige” actors like Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin (with John Krasinski of “The Office” thrown in – you know, for the “young” people).

While it has its funny moments, “It’s Complicated” is as overlong and slack as the rest of Meyers’ oeuvre. Meyers can’t seem to write a comedy that doesn’t appear to draw generously from her own life – and which doesn’t include the movie equivalent of either an encounter group or a therapy session (or both). And most of her films seem to trade on that old comedy dictum: There’s no fool like an old fool.

The old fools in this case are Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin, as Jake and Jane Adler. Divorced for 10 years (because he chased – and caught – a much younger woman, a thankless role filled by Lake Bell), they’ve found a way to be friendly. When the two wind up sharing what starts as a pair of solo dinners while at their son’s college graduation in New York, the wine and circumstances end with them falling into bed together.

It’s a revelation to both of them: to her because she’s been unwillingly celibate for a while; to him because it gives him a new appreciation for his ex, particularly because his current wife (Lake Bell) is made to seem like a harpie. So when they return to their homes in Santa Barbara, Jake pursues a continuation of what is now an affair with his ex-wife.

She, meanwhile, finds herself attracted to the vulnerable, slightly uptight architect (Steve Martin), who is building the addition to her kitchen. Throw in their three children (and future son-in-law Krasinski) and you have the makings of a farce.

Or you would, in the hands of a director who knows what to do with these elements. Meyers, however, can’t seem to build any kind of pace or comic tension with this material that’s sustained beyond a scene or two. She works hard to make it mean something, instead of just letting it go where it should. So while there are some funny sequences – particularly one involving late-middle-age pot-smoking and another involving a hotel rendezvous gone wrong – they’re separated by acres of filler, scenes in which the characters are forced to explore their emotional landscape, rather than letting us figure it out for ourselves.

Meyers’ script is as bloated as her work on her past films: “Something’s Gotta Give,” “The Holiday,” “What Women Want.” But, as in the past, she has a cast of consummate professionals to dress this up and make it seem like more than it is.

Streep and Baldwin have a terrific chemistry, a Gable-Lombard kind of friction that ultimately produces heat. By contrast, Streep and Martin engage in comedic judo, a slippery but engaging push-pull without the aggression of the Streep-Baldwin scenes. Krasinski holds his own in this vaunted company, playing the nervous guy who knows way more than he wants to about what his future in-laws are up to.

“It’s Complicated” wants to please, wants to amuse, wants to make older viewers feel good about making bad choices and surviving to realize their mistake. It wants to be all things to all people – which, of course, means that it offers not much of anything at all.

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