Crazy Stupid Love - Movie Review

Is it possible for a male audience to enjoy a chick-flick? It does when you add humor that appeals to our twisted sense of the world. It does when you have a pimped out Ryan Gosling picking up chicks at the bar...and taking Steve Carell under his tutelage. Crazy, Stupid, Love may lean toward chick-flick, but it has plenty of good stuff for the guys, too.

Cal (Carell) and Emily (Julianne Moore) are childhood sweethearts whose marriage has lost its luster. Cal finds out over dinner that Emily wants a divorce. It gets worse. Emily also slept with her co-worker, David Lindhagen (Kevin Bacon). Hanging on to a thread, Cal moves into an apartment and tries to drown his sorrows at a nearby bar. It is the same bar where Jacob (Ryan Gosling) works his magic.

Jacob is a ladies man. He has a bullet proof strategy that always ends the same (the dramatic scene from Dirty Dancing followed by intense sexual encounters). Jacob takes pity on Cal and decides to help him out. Jacob is Miyagi to Cal's Daniel-san. He teaches Cal the ins and outs of style and pick-up lines. Cal slowly absorbs his lessons gradually becoming a first-rate pick up artist himself.

In the meantime, Emily is not interested in pursuing David, her son Robbie (Jonah Bobo) is in love with the babysitter and the babysitter has a wild crush on Cal. When Jacob meets Hannah (Emma Stone), his gameplan changes. The twisted, intertwined relationships explode in a climactic episode where an interesting plot twist evolves. It is an examination of love and growing pains from an interesting variety of angles.

While Crazy, Stupid, Love uses some formula in developing its plot, it has plenty of interesting sub-plots and humor that is unique enough to make it different. The plot is contrived and convoluted, but in a fun way. It weaves together an array of stories into an engaging, funny, introspective, emotional look at love. The characters may be a little bit flat, but they are lovable. The lack of dimension seems to be overcome by the engaging actors and the tongue-in-cheek quality of the film that doesn't seem to take itself to seriously. And in the end, the film still manages to have some touching moments. Somehow, I managed to enjoy this movie more than I should have.

Part of my enjoyment stems from the acting. I am a huge Ryan Gosling fan. It was fun to watch the often subdued, brooding Gosling step out into a flashy, confident role. His character had a charm where he should have been simply sleazy (or cheesy). He is great along side Carell. It's sometimes hard to tell who the "straight man" is. The pair had great comic chemistry and seemed to relish this project. I also like Emma Stone, who was awesome. Although I am starting to wonder about her working in films with Scarlet Letter references (Easy A). This is at least her second. A strong cast made this mildly interesting movie exceptional.

In spite of Hannah's assertion that she was going to give Jacob an "R" rated evening (after an interesting monologue on her PG-13 version), this film still eked out a PG-13. It was an interesting juxtaposition between the dialogue and the actual rating. The film manages a PG-13 from an abundance of adult material. This includes plenty of sexual references, sexual encounters (although we never actually see the encounters) and discussions about sexual topics. The humor is coarse, but perfect to keep the male members of the audience engaged. This is an adult-oriented PG-13. The humor is geared toward older audiences, so the rating is probably well applied, pre-teens might be better off staying at home with the baby-sitter (who they probably have a crush on).

So why did I enjoy this chick flick? I'm not sure. It was funny. It had a great cast. It had a decent message. There was a happy ending (no double-entendre intended). The pacing was a bit slow, especially towards the end of the film, but it was a cute film. It was a good "date night" film that has something for both sexes. If the pacing were more steady and the plot less convoluted, I might have actually given this film five stars. I enjoyed the plot twist, which I never saw coming and thought that the movie had just enough range to exceed the sum of its parts. 8/10.

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