Movie Review: Crazy, Stupid, Love

I heard rave reviews about this film. I had friends tell me how much they enjoyed it. There were a lot of reasons why I should have already seen Crazy, Stupid, Love but somehow, the film just never caught my interest. Then again, I'm an idiot. This was easily was one the most enjoyable films I've seen in some time.

Bang Bros.

Steve Carell plays Cal Weaver, a pathetic shell of a suburban dad whose wife, played by Julianne Moore, announces that she's cheated on him and wants a divorce. Cal has a bit of a breakdown and starts boozing it up every night a happening downtown bar which attracts the attention of Ryan Gosling's ultimate ladies man character Jacob. Jacob takes Cal under his wing and teaches the previously emasculated loser (with his Supercuts hair style and clothes from The Gap) how to strut his stuff and bone hot twenty-something broads like a champ!

Of course things flip turn upside down when long lost emotions start to resurface in all of the film's characters. Not just in Cal but for other members of his family as well as in the coldly calculating Lothario, Jacob himself. What makes Crazy, Stupid, Love so successful is it's serious look at love at all levels of the human experience. From grade school crushes and one night stands, to 20+ year marriages and bouts of infidelity. The film explores just how intoxicating and heartbreaking this raw emotion can be. Anyone with a pulse who has ever longed for another human being will have something to identify with here.

It also helps that the script/dialogue is sharp. The all star cast does an amazing job of grounding these often goofy characters with some sense of reality. Gosling and Carell have some strangely awesome chemistry together while Emma Stone is as cute/funny as ever. Of course the film's secret weapon is the always entertaining/gorgeous, Marisa Tomei. She may only have a small role in this film, but like even the tinyiest of diamonds, she sparkles, shines and proves extremely valuable in the end.

Jim's Fear, Female Obsession:  March 2011

So go see Crazy, Stupid, Love...or as I like to call it: Funny, Smart, Entertaining.