Heartburn is a 1986 American comedy drama film directed and produced by Mike Nichols, starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.

Manhattan food writer Rachel Samstat and Washington, D.C. political columnist Mark Forman meet at a mutual friend's wedding.

When she takes it to the jeweler's to get the stone tightened, she discovers that Mark has bought a very expensive necklace, which coincides with Thelma's birthday.

[3] Nora Ephron's screenplay is based on her 1983 autobiographical novel of the same name, and inspired by her tempestuous second marriage to Carl Bernstein and his affair with Margaret Jay, the daughter of former British Prime Minister James Callaghan.

The site's critics consensus reads: "Despite an astonishing collection of talent across the board, Heartburn's aimless plot inspires mild indigestion instead of romantic ardor.

[8] Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it "a bitter, sour movie about two people who are only marginally interesting" and placed much of the blame on screenwriter Nora Ephron, who "should have based her story on somebody else's marriage.

"[9] Variety thought it was "a beautifully crafted film with flawless performances and many splendid moments, yet the overall effect is a bit disappointing" and added, "While the day-to-day details are drawn with a striking clarity, Ephron's script never goes much beyond the mannerisms of middle-class life.

You are still asking when it's over, and by then a flatness, a disappointment, is likely to have settled over the fillips you'd enjoyed," noting that "[t]hough Ephron is a gifted and a witty light essayist, her novel is no more than a variant of a princess fantasy: Rachel, the wife, is blameless; Mark, the husband, is simply a bad egg—an adulterer.

And, reading the book, you don't have to take Rachel the bratty narrator very seriously; her self-pity is so thinly masked by humor and unabashed mean-spiritedness that you feel that the author is exploiting her life—trashing it by presenting it as a juicy, fast-action comic strip about a marriage of celebrities.