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Crazy, Stupid, Love.


Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011)



I have a bit of a guilty affection for the romantic comedy sub-genre. For some reason, I find it nice to watch attractive people meet, fall in love, get involved in embarrassing situations, fall out of love and recover their feelings for each other before the credits roll. Crazy, Stupid, Love is a bit different than the aforementioned formula, but still has that same feeling of deja-vu, like we've seen these situations before, but better. But luckily it has a greater strength in the character development area.

Steve Carell plays Cal Weaver, a happily married family man, with a solid life; until his wife asks for a divorce. A distraught Cal then gets some help from smooth ladies man Jacob Palmer (Ryan Gosling) about navigating the single scene. Meanwhile, Cal's son is in love with his babysitter, who is in love with Cal.

This film is very likeable, but if you're expecting some big laughs, I wouldn't recommend this film to you. It doesn't score high on the laugh factor, which can seem disappointing in a superficial way, if you can't appreciate the film's riveting element; the way it deals with its characters. They all have some less desirable qualities; Jacob's lowlife womanising, Emily's (Julianne Moore) impulsive cheating with David (Kevin Bacon), David emitting this aura of "*******" in each scene he's in, and so on, and so forth. But through the credit of the writing, and especially the acting, these characters got my sympathy where needed and never got on my nerves.

But I think the real reason this film clicked with me is the fact that out of the entire principle cast, there's not a single actor or actress I dislike. The only one who mildly gets on my nerves is Julianne Moore, and that's only because of her amazing feat of crying in nearly every single movie she's ever starred in (and she gets the waterworks going in this in a couple of scenes), but she's quite good in this, giving a sympathetic performance to a normally unsympathetic character. I also really like Steve Carell here, I was expecting him to put on his 40 Year Old Virgin routine, but I like how he's much more restrained here than normal. Marisa Tomei and Kevin Bacon are solid in their small roles, and Emma Stone is amazingly hot, and someone who I like seeing in films (even though I haven't seen Easy A).

The real standout for me, though, is Ryan Gosling. He's fast becoming one of my favourite actors, and here, he delivers the best performance of the group. He could've easily overdone the slimy womanizer bit, but is much more understated and smooth in his performance. I've only seen him in this and Drive (which I LOVE), but I'm jumping aboard the Gosling bandwagon right here and now.

Crazy, Stupid, Love is a refreshing rom-com, being that it doesn't focus on laughs, but characters. A solid film, IMO.

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