A washington political columnist marries a new york food writer. From the nora ephron novel. Studio: Paramount Home Video Release Date: 01/17/2006 Starring: Meryl Streep Jeff Daniels Run time: 108 minutes Rating: R Director: Mike Nichols

You'd have thought that Nora Ephron and Mike Nichols had remade Heaven's Gate: that was the critical reaction to this film version of Ephron's semiautobiographical novel about her own marital woes. The fact that they had Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep playing thinly disguised versions of Carl Bernstein and Ephron probably made them bigger, fatter targets. In fact, the film was a genuinely funny and painful look at the effects of marital infidelity and divorce, in the story of two married writers and what happens when the pregnant wife finds out the husband has been fooling around behind her back. The film is more dramatic and less quip-filled than Ephron's novel, which made the Ephron character a food writer and was peppered with recipes. Nicholson stepped into his role at the last minute, when Nichols fired Mandy Patinkin for being too intense and not funny enough. --Marshall Fine