Plot:
Cal (Steve Carrell) just received
a divorce request from his wife, Emily (Julianne Moore). Even worse, she even
told him blatantly that she slept with her colleague, David Lindhagen (Kevin
Bacon). Heartbroken and devastated, Cal has
to deal with his marital crisis and manage his relationship with his children.
Then, he met Jacob (Ryan Gosling), a super cool dude who is an easy going man with
any women he met. For pity sake, Jacob decided to help Cal out of his misery,
by changing his looks and alter the personality, and especially how to approach
women better. Afterwards, Cal has to juggle with too many balls: handle the new
‘Cal’, get Emily back, grow confidence in his kid, and has to decide which ‘Cal’
is the best for all.
Review:
I used to be big fan of rom-com-cheesy and full of cliché flicks (read:
romantic comedy), especially the 90’s ones. I grew up with Nora Ephron’s “Sleepless in Seattle” and “You’ve Got Mail”, I enjoyed also
particularly “When Harry Met Sally”, “Before Sunrise”, ”Before Sunset”, and not to mention, the cheesiest and my favourite,
“Serendipity” back in the 2001. But
then, I found it difficult to enjoy any rom-com especially for the past decade.
Only some titles worth mentioning, let’s say “Love Actually”, “Definitely
Maybe”, and “500 Days of Summer”.
Nowadays, there is a new ‘breed’ kind of flick, which is the R-rated
one (my favourite would be “Forgetting
Sarah Marshall”). Especially in this year, we have seen some of the
successful examples, from “Friends with
Benefit”,”No Strings Attached”, “Bridesmaids”, and “Bad Teacher”. But somehow, I still miss those 90’s PG-13 rom-com
which could be watched by a wider range of audiences. And fortunately, “Crazy,
Stupid, Love” happens to be a good one.
Although the whole movie didn’t live up the expectation of the title’s
first word, “Crazy, Stupid, Love” is one of the most enjoyable rom-com I’ve
seen since “500 Days of Summer”. With
a title like that, I was expecting harsh reviews or bashing from the critics.
Apparently, “Crazy, Stupid, Love” was reasonably smart, and remarkably sane.
Surprisingly, this is a good and enjoyable rom-com flick, with a lot of
surprises on the menu which you don’t see in the trailer. Plus point, I’m quite
glad to see the ‘cheesy’ level does not go over the top. Plotwise, is kinda
similar with things we have seen in “Love
Actually” and “He’s Just Not That In
to You”, with several plots mixed up altogether to show how different
characters are related to one another. Added up with nice soundtracks, “Crazy,
Stupid, Love” is a good example how perfect cast chemistry can determine how
good your movie is.
Carrell and Gosling are the definitely the frontmen, where each
performance is as good as what you expect from them. I really enjoy Carrell’s
character, since I think he’s way better to deliver this kind of thing rather
than slapstick crap such as “Dinner with
Schmucks”, “Get Smart”, or “Date
Night”. Although he’s pretty good as Cal, a more rather serious character,
he’s still one of the funniest guy alive. On the other hand, Jacob’s character
perhaps is an easy play by Gosling, especially after his emotionally drowning
act in his previous “Blue Valentine” (it
was depressing really) or “the Notebook”.
With Jacob, Gosling seems to fit in seamlessly as one hell 6-pack womanizer
dude.
For me, the real traits must be the women cast, ranging from my favourite
hottie Emma Stone, Julianne Moore and Marisa Tomei, which both seems to become
hotter and hotter in their 40s. As Gosling’s love interest, Stone always seems to
be a perfect cast in any kinky, independent, and ‘smarter than blonde’ role
(although she’s originally blonde). Big green eyes, freckles, sultry voice, and
fetching overbite, I simply adore her. Moore did okay as dilemmatic wife who
didn’t have any grip on moving forward, while Tomei was involved in a ‘very
surprising plot’, which looked nothing in the beginning, but will leave your
mouth open halfway through.
Another scene stealer performance came from the little kid, Jonah Bobo
playing Robbie, Cal’s kid, who fell in love with his babysitter, and just can’t
stop saying it out loud. For the rest, it was kinda disappointing to see Bacon’s
character did not develop too much apart from Cal’s marital threat. But again,
I think the cast ensemble worked pretty well.
There’s a lot of great scenes in this movie, and you should watch it
yourself, cause I’m not gonna spoil it for you. Some are funny, unpredictable,
and some are quite touchy also. There is one memorable scene when Cal was
sneaking in into his own home just to mow the lawn, he has to watch his family
life without him, when suddenly Emily called her just to say ‘hi’ not realizing
that her husband is just about 200 m away.
During a summer when every other rom-coms have R-rated scripts, “Crazy,
Stupid, Love” provides a well scripted plot and sensible date-night choice.
Overall, perhaps this does not have the same quality than those 90’s rom-coms I
mentioned earlier, but clearly it’s a lot better and fresher and most importantly,
less recycled than much of the available romantic comedy flicks in the current
era. There is still some flaws, especially with the pace and the end
conclusion, but nevertheless, it is still enjoyable, and worthwhile to spend
this with your dates.
My Review: 8/10
movie trailer (courtesy of Youtube):
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