Movie: Crazy Stupid Love
Starring: Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone
Released: July 29, 20011
Hoot Rating: I give this movie a One Hoot rating.
Summary sans Spoilers: Steve Carell plays Cal, your average married man who is comfortable with his marriage to wife Emily, played by Julian Moore. He is comfortable, she is bored and asks for a divorce. Brokenhearted, Cal starts to spend his evenings at a bar where night, after night he watches the handsome, ladies man Jacob, played by Ryan Gosling, take home girl, after girl. Tired of seeing Cal's pathetic self every night, Jacob tells him that he can teach him his tricks to getting women in bed. Cal goes along with it and gets completely transformed, wardrobe wise at least, and starts having his own sexual conquests. While Cal turns into Jacob, Jacob turns into Cal when he falls in love with Hannah, played by Emma Stone. Over time, and with the help of his son, Cal discovers that he has only ever loved his wife and wants her back. What ensues is just a representation of the complications on love and the difficulties of relationships. Basically, people do crazy and stupid things when they are in love.
The Critical Eye: To be honest, I have to say I had really high hopes for this film. I am sad to say that I was most unfortunately disappointed. I expected it to be sweet with some sad moments, but that it would end happily and reinforce my belief in true love, even if just for a little bit once it was over. Instead, I sat through a movie that was very slow to start and poorly constructed plot-wise. It felt much longer than the two hours it actually is because of how slow the beginning was. It is clear that Crazy, Stupid, Love was trying to accomplish the very same seamless story transitions of an ensemble cast that the film Love Actually was able to do quite successfully. Crazy, Stupid, Love, however failed in this effort just like another similar and disappointing movie, Valentine's Day. Perhaps Crazy, Stupid, Love feels so slow in the beginning because it focuses too much on the "picking up a girl at a bar" scenes. I felt we needed to see more scenes between Cal & Emily and Jacob & Hannah. There was really only one good scene with Jacob & Hannah and I think it would have done the movie good to show their relationship develop a little more. As for scenes with Cal and Emily, we just needed more scenes that show how well they know each other. Emily is much too cold in the scenes they do have together. I also found myself quite disturbed by the story-lines of the babysitter and the son. They were just somewhat inappropriate and added to the slow pace. The movie does gain strength in the end, however with a hilarious twist. As for the acting, Steve Carell does a marvelous job, as always, at playing pathetically funny. He has the perfect face for it. Julianne Moore was...well, Julianne Moore. There just wasn't much there. Ryan Gosling definitely gave this movie delightful sex appeal and he had wonderful chemistry with Emma Stone, who was as wonderful as ever with her clumsy sarcasm and intelligent strength.
The Bottom Line: There were, maybe, three really good scenes. For the most part it focused a little bit too much on lust rather than love for a PG-13 movie. It does attempt to send a sweet message but I do not really feel that was accomplished. Basically, if you want a Steve Carell comedy, pick something else. This is more of a Dan in Real Life kind of thing. If you want an achingly beautiful love story like The Notebook, pick something else. If you want a cliche romantic comedy with brilliant wit and sarcasm like Easy A, pick something else. If you just want to see Ryan Gosling shirtless and sexy, this is the movie for you.
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