Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011)

A lot of stupid, a lotta love, and some craziness ain’t so bad.

When Cal Weaver (Steve Carell) discovers that his wife (Julianne Moore) wants to end their marriage, he reluctantly faces the unwelcome prospect of single life with the counsel of the younger and smoother super-bachelor Jacob Palmer (Ryan Gosling). However, Gosling’s character starts to question his playboy ways when he meets Anna (Emma Stone) and falls in love.

Ever since the trailer first came out for this way back when, I couldn’t wait to see it, but waiting 2 weeks after it already came out to see it was a good idea.

Directors Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (I Love You Phillip Morris) know how to balance out comedy and drama very well here. There are times where I laughed and a lot of the times felt very moved by a lot of the interactions between these characters and wanted to see more of it as the film progressed.

The problem with the film is that the script itself is just moving along a slick pace but with way too many subplots to actually fit it’s two hour time-limit. When you have all these different characters, it’s sometimes very hard to make all their stories fit before the end is over and this film doesn’t know how to actually wrap it up all too well really which is kind of a shame because there is many comedies within the past year that have been able to do that very same thing well.

In certain scenes, there is that great sign of insight within the script that talks about two people think when it’s not just about sex which I liked because it showed that this was a sort of smart and intelligent romantic comedy that was so based in reality. However, there are so many moments here that are almost cringe-worthy by how sappy and contrived they are. This film is very knowing about certain things and then very up-lifting and sentimental about others which kind of bummed me out considering that there could have been so much here that actually spoke a lot about relationships and love, when in the end, it just turns out to be another rom-com with too much sweetness.

When I kept wondering if I liked this film or not, I kept on coming back to the cast and that’s when I knew, I actually did like this film a lot more. Steve Carell is basically playing the same guy he always plays here as Cal Weaver, but he does it so well that you can actually connect to his character and sympathize with him. There’s a lot of problems that this character runs into but Carell makes it all seem believable and truly has that comedic and dramatic depth to all of his characters.

The real revelation of this film is actually Ryan Gosling who is amazing as Jacob Palmer. Gosling has always had that charm that people know and love him for but he’s never been able to fully throw out his comedic chops until now and I have to say that he really does know exactly what he’s doing. This guy is the exact persona of what every guy in the world thinks they are and what they look like, however, Gosling actually is and with the rock-hard abs, to the fresh-to-def looking vests and to the combed-over hair, Gosling just fits this role so perfectly and shows that he has great comedic timing as well as the dramatic depth to his character to make Jacob Palmer work in the end.

Julianne Moore is also very good as as Cal’s wife, Emily, who has a lot of problems as a character, but somehow Moore is able to over-shadow them with her amazing screen presence and Emma Stone is a lot of fun to watch as Hanna, and creates this great chemistry with Gosling that at first may seem hard to believe in, but by the end you may start to actually wish the film was more on them. Marisa Tomei and Kevin Bacon are actually kind of in cameo roles but they both play each role amazingly well, given the time they both have on screen.

Consensus: There are moments here that seem incredibly intelligent while others just have you shake your head at the predictable cheesy moments that take so much away from Crazy, Stupid, Love. despite an amazing cast and good moments of being smarter than other rom-com’s out there.

6.5/10=Rental!!