For a while the dramedy Great Hope Springs was seeming too good to be true-- starring Meryl Streep and Jeff Bridges as a couple trying to save their marriage, with veteran Mike Nichols stepping in to direct them. Now, it seems, it really wasn't true. Deadline Hollywood reports that Streep and Nichols are very much involved, but Bridges isn't attached.

It's a bummer not just because it would have been awesome to see The Dude and Julia Child team up as an age-appropriate couple, but because it's pretty hard to find an actor in Streep's age range who's remotely up to her challenge. She and Stanley Tucci made a great team both in Devil Wears Prada and Julie & Julia but Tucci is actually 11 years her junior. At 60 Streep is seven years older than Tom Hanks but more than a decade younger than Robert Redford, Jon Voight, Dustin Hoffman-- all the actors who were her contemporaries in the 70s. Bridges and Streep are nearly exactly the same age, which is just another reason they would have been perfect together.

Ah well-- back to the beginning. Maybe they'll ignore the age difference and just let Tucci and Streep pair up again, since watching them eat dinner together in Julie & Julia was one of the greatest moviegoing pleasures of last year. Even if Great Hope Springs is intended as a more serious drama, I assume the two of them are more than up to it.