Crazy Stupid Love

Steve Carell (The 40-Year-Old Virgin) plays Cal Weaver, a divorced guy due to his wife's (Julianne Moore - The Big Lebowski) recent indiscretions with her colleague David (Kevin Bacon). Distraught and largely clueless about the dating scene, he sits at a bar drowning his sorrows night after night until the ultra-smooth pick-up artist Jacob (Ryan Gosling -The Notebook) decides to help him to meet new women. Meanwhile, Cal's lovesick son is obsessed with his 17-year old babysitter, Jessica (Analeigh Tipton - The Green Hornet), who in turn has quite an unhealthy crush on Cal himself, unbeknownst to him. While Cal finds his mojo, the remaining elements of his life wrestle with their own concept of love, often involving their feelings for him, whilst the perennial singleton Jacob falls hard for one of his conquests, Hannah (Emma Stone - Paper Man). Will things work out for anyone involved?

Whilst the premise of this film seems rather convoluted, it's remarkably easy to follow once it's laid out for you, the comedy is refreshing as it tends to steer clear of the usual set of rom-com clichés by providing functional characters that do fine in life, but wrestle with love - for instance Cal still has his job, Jessica does fine at school and Jacob is a master of his trade. But the growth of Carell's character throughout this 2 hour masterpiece is fantastic, he is the centre point despite Gosling's phenomenal acting.

I guess that the "player falls in love" story arc has been done far too many times before but I really think it's worth a mention that the scene where Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling dissect his methodology for getting laid is one of the best pieces of cinema I have seen all year and I watch a lot of film! - it's just so plausible and consequently believable and they have really great chemistry. This film is worth a watch for that part alone. The true beauty to this film is that it runs the gamut of love; unrequited first-love-crushes, marriage, the honeymoon period, infidelity and even just plain sleeping around - it truly covers all phases of love.

Extra Content: There are a couple of featurettes, "Ryan & Steve walk into a bar" which features the guys chatting the film over in the film's heavily-featured watering hole. "The player meets his match" which is a dissection of Jacob by Gosling himself, Carell and Stone. There are over 12 minutes of deleted scenes (it's already a 2 hour movie!!) which do add to the experience, the shopping scenes where Gosling kits out Carell are fantastic.

Crazy, Stupid, Love. is titled and packaged up like all of the other inane rom-coms out there, but this was a total surprise, it was a joy to watch, caught me totally unawares at a couple of points and really leaves you feeling good. Well worth a watch, especially for Ryan Gosling's part. Highly Recommended!!

As comedies go, I think this is probably one of the better ones you will see this year.

Steve Carell plays Cal, a husband who splits from his high school sweetheart, played by Julianne Moore, after she cheats. Hanging out in single bars every nights he sees this ladies man played by Ryan Gosling successfully pick up numerous women, while he says out loud to anyone who will listen, 'my wife cheated on me with xxxx.'

Meanwhile his teenage son has the hots for his babysitter, while the babysitter crushes on Cal. We have 4 romantic triangles between the main characters, that are developed to great comic effect.

So, Ryan Gosling's character takes him under his wing, as his wing man, and shows him how to score with the ladies, which leads to many interesting twists and turns.

There were several parts of this movie that made me cringe, one was the patheticness of the character played by Steve Carell. The teenage crush made me cringe a little, especially with the absurd things this kid did to get her attention.

In fairness this was more than balanced with some high quality scenes and interactions, particularly the scenes with Marisa Tomei, who I thought was absolutely brilliant, especially when her simmering emotions boil over at the parent teacher meeting.

The Dirty Dancing routine between Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone was simply movie magic, and one of the best scenes I have seen all year, two quality actors, chemistry, everything, perfect.

I have a sneaking suspicion that Ryan Gosling may be one the best actors on the planet. You probably know him from The Notebook, a perennial top 100 rental on leading dvd rental sites. He has studously avoided the mainstream doing indie and art house movies. Watching his performance in Blue Valentine with Michelle Williams convinced me of his greatness, with some reminders of a young DeNiro, without the psychotic overtones, or even perhaps Sean Penn, the most respected actor among his peers.

The proof may not be out there yet, and I am so glad to see him to see him in a mainstream movie. I hope that he will continue to make critically acclaimed movies and also more widely seen movies, and that he will get both the recognition, and ultimately the accolades he deserves.

Emma Stone, what can you say, she is the best of the young actresses who has emerged over the last two years, outstanding in Easy A, and now the lead in The Help, for which she may get an Oscar nom.

I hope this was helpful, and I think the movie is worth seeing.

There's been a spate of films lately where two or more very different people (who are often somehow friends) are forced to spend time together, and through various trials and tribulations, end up 'learning from each other'. Due Date, Hangover 2, Horrible Bosses (to an extent), The Change Up, and Crazy, Stupid, Love are the ones that I saw. In fact, I watched CSL two days after The Change Up.

The contrast could not have been greater. Where Change Up relied on your basic hard swearing and 'gag' gags (so very very tiresome in this day and age unless done really well), CSL was a much better thought-out film with multiple story lines weaving together smoothly, and normal, believable characters. The main plot is a man whose wife wants a separation, having had enough of their too-settled relationship. Spotted moping in a bar by a ladykiller, he is taught how to pull in women. CSL flows really well between serious moments (a couple coping with separation, the anxieties of teen love), and lighthearted/cringeworthy ones (Cal having his image remodeled, teen love again). None of the characters are filler, and the scenes with the kids especially feel as if they are out of a good 'indie' teen movie.

So in short, for me this film really stood out because it makes you laugh (a lot), think (just enough), and is actually *uplifting*, which cannot really be said about a film where Zach Galifianakis is pleasuring himself in a car in front of a small dog.