“CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE”Screenplay Written by Dan Fogelman
Directed by Glenn Ficara & John Requa
*½ (one and a half stars)
Has the state of modern cinema grown so pitiful that nearly anything that does not fall into the quicksand trap of genre clichés to which we have all grown tiredly familiar receives a copious (and, at times, undeserved) amount of praise?
Take this fall’s atmospheric thriller “Drive,” for instance. Yes, I did like that movie and I did give it a positive review, which I still stand by. But, my admiration for it was soft at best and frankly, I haven’t even thought about it much since having seen it. The purpose of mentioning “Drive” was that the reviews for that film from major film critics across the country were essentially a series of raves. Four stars here. Four stars there. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone magazine proclaimed that “Drive” is one of the best films of 2011 and that Albert Brooks deserves an Oscar nomination for ging against type by portraying a crime boss. Now, dear readers, I do understand and completely acknowledge that everyone is entitled to their opinion but sometimes, I do have to shake my head in disbelief. “Drive” was a film that stepped outside of the “been there done that” world of action thrillers just enough that it gave the impression of being a fresh experience…although it was a complete homage to thrillers of the 1980s, therefore making “Drive” not nearly as original as those reviews would like for you to believe.
So, now I turn to Directors Glenn Ficara & John Requa’s “Crazy, Stupid, Love,” the latest entry into the romantic comedy-drama genre. While the box office for this film was so-so when it was released this summer, the critical praise was uncommonly high for a film of this nature. The consistent level of high praise did make me very curious to see if this film could transcend the typical inane, contrived, and flat out unrealistic characters and situations that have run rampant in recent movie love stories. Now having seen the film for myself, and as you may have witnessed from my star rating, you can tell that I did not find this film to be a successful one at all. But, I can see how the film could have received such praise because it does, at least, make an attempt to be about real people and real emotions, something most movie love stories as of late have completely forgotten about. I could see that for so many of these critics, that the proceedings of “Crazy, Stupid, Love” felt so refreshingly honest when compared to the endless tripe which stars Katherine Heigl, Sandra Bullock, or Kate Hudson. Maybe so…but when the film has to stand on its own two cinematic feet, I just felt that it was not nearly as refreshingly honest as it absolutely had to be and it made for an experience that, while being a hair better than the works of Heigl, Bullock and Hudson, it’s not by much at all.
Steve Carell and Julianne Moore star as Cal and Emily Weaver, a married couple who first fell in love during high school. As the film opens, Cal and Emily are out of a dinner date when Emily gives Cal the shock of his life: she has cheated on him with her office mate David Lindhagen (Kevin Bacon) and now, she wants a divorce. The wounded Cal soon moves out of his home, obtains an apartment and begins to frequent a nearby bar to drown his sorrows and to speak to anyone about his troubles. Cal soon catches the attention of the bar playboy Jacob Palmer (Ryan Gosling), who takes pity upon Cal and decides to give him a "male makeover," which includes shopping for an entirely new wardrobe and being schooled in the attitude necessary to bed different women night after night.
The pains of love are extended beyond Cal and Emily as the film also sets its sight upon their 13 year old son Robbie (Jonah Bobo), who nurses an unrequited crush upon 17 year old babysitter Jessica Riley (Analeigh Tipton), who herself nurses her own secret crush upon Cal!
Emma Stone figures into the story as law student Hannah, who is currently hoping for a marriage proposal from her dry boyfriend Richard (Josh Groban) and has even once rejected the aggressive advances of Jacob. Yet, as her marriage desires fall apart, she drunkenly reciprocates Jacob’s original advances and the twosome becomes a couple thus forcing Jacob to re-evaluate his sexual and romantic motivations and perceptions.
Now, all of this makes for a series of storylines that would go right up my cinematic alley as there is essentially nothing on the surface of “Crazy, Stupid, Love” that would allow for the types of inane, contrived and flat out unrealistic characters and situations that are the romantic comedy staples as of late, to arrive. For me, Steve Carell is the film’s high point by far, as he easily conveys the hurt and disillusion of a man who has been betrayed by the only woman he has ever loved. He finds the right notes to play and the exact kernels of truth from one end of this film to another by dialing down his comedic mania and bringing out a level of sensitivity that immediately places the audience into his corner. He is a good man and we really do not want to see him hurt. I especially enjoyed the scenes between him and Jonah Bobo as they created a convincing Father/son bond and the tricky situation of not damaging his son’s impressions and outlook upon the nature of love, especially as he is going through a devastating period himself.
So, what a shame it is that “Crazy, Stupid, Love” lets him down tremendously by injecting so much of that annoying amount of contrivance instead of the emotionally truthful and it made the overall experience of the film increasingly irritating, artificial and more than a little stupid. It’s one of those movies where the only characters that seem to exist in its cinematic world are the ones that only matter to the actual plot (I mean, doesn’t Robbie have any friends at school, for instance?). As the film continues, Ficara and Requa via Dan Fogelman’s screenplay, force characters to have connections with each other in a way that only occurs through a Script Writing class. The film’s final moment between eight grader Robbie and high school student Jessica is a disaster as it could have been a beautifully bittersweet moment depicting those first difficult steps into love. But as it stands, it is a scene that is ultimately nothing more than a teenage boy wish fulfillment fantasy that, not only would NEVER happen, but just doesn’t have a place in a film that proclaims that it wants to examine the messiness of love by having a story with infidelity and divorce at its core.
Marisa Tomei, who arrives in the movie as Cal’s first date since his separation from Emily, is completely wasted in the film as a character who begins as a realistic portrayal yet quickly ends up as a cartoon. For an actress who carries such presence on screen combined with an increasing mature attractiveness, her character could have added deeper layers to the story. But no, her performance is essentially what you saw in those endless advertisements for the film and she just grows more unrealistically unhinged as the film lopes along. Tomei deserves so much better!
While much praise has been heaped upon Ryan Gosling’s performance (and yes, it is a good one), I just could not buy this character at all because his desire to give Cal a makeover arrives without any realistic motivation whatsoever. I just could not understand WHY this womanizer would even give a man like Cal the time of day let alone want to take him under his wing to boot. Although Carell and Gosling do share some strong comedic chemistry and they do what they can to sell this material, it all felt to be so false.
Worst of all, “Crazy, Stupid, Love” just pays lip service to the heartache and confusion of love without seeming to understand it even one bit as it trumps any moments of real heart for sub standard comedy and ridiculous situations that just made me roll my eyes, shift in my seat uncomfortably and slap my forehead in disbelief. Of course, this story can be mined for comedy, it doesn’t have to be so crushingly serous. But none of the comedy felt honest and frankly, so very little of it was actually funny at all. Nearly everything in “Crazy, Stupid, Love” was so trite, so bland, so vanilla, so cloyingly safe and so unwilling to get its cinematic hands emotionally dirty that the whole escapade is all for nothing. It actually reminded quite a bit of Director Sam Weisman’s divorced Dad comedy “Bye, Bye Love” (1995), a supremely wasted opportunity and giant piece of cinematic Wonder Bread if there ever was one. In short, “Crazy, Stupid, Love” offers sitcom solutions to very real problems.
Which is a shame as “Crazy, Stupid, Love” does offer quite a few strong scenes, including one featuring Cal and Emily talking about the trajectories of their lives as they sit outside of the middle school principal’s office. A scene at the neighborhood bar, very late in the film, between Cal and Jacob is also strong. And I would say that the film’s very best sequence is the evening long courtship between Jacob and Hannah. Not only does Emma Stone elevate every scene in which she appears, it also allows Ryan Gosling to show greater and deeper layers to his otherwise one-note character. They have chemistry to burn and I would hope that some filmmaker out there would like to tap into their combined energy and give them real characters and a real story to be a part of.
It was during those aforementioned scenes that I began to have the feeling that the film was about to really go somewhere special. But then, the cartoon contrivances settled in once again, creating yet another bubble headed candyfloss hearted romantic comedy world where everything can be magically fixed at the most improbable moment, in this case, a painfully unrealistic eight grade graduation ceremony were certain characters are in attendance solely to allow the plot threads to forcefully connect again.
Look, I realize that I am being quite hard upon this movie, especially one that is decidedly non-controversial. But, dear readers, I am this harsh because “Crazy, Stupid, Love” had to much potential to be more than it was. It did try but it just kept undercutting its own ambitions to be greater than what usually arrives in our theaters. And the film’s constant unwillingness to burrow deeply into romantically uncomfortable waters, for comedy, for drama and for emotional truth itself, became depressingly tiring.
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