Crazy, Stupid, Love

I'm not adverse to a romantic comedy; I'm a huge fan of Love Actually amongst others, and having seen the trailer for Crazy, Stupid, Love, I thought it looked promising.

The story centres on 40-something Cal (Steve Carrell) who is told by his wife Emily (Julianne Moore) that she wants a divorce after 25 years of marriage. During the course of the conversation, she admits that she slept with a work colleague David (Kevin Bacon).

After spending several evenings in a bar, he is offered help by local lothario Jacob (Ryan Gosling) who takes him shopping and teaches him how to pick up women. A warm friendship begins to develop between the two as Cal develops the confidence to talk to women.

At the same, Cal's son Robbie (Jonah Bobo) is also having difficulties with affairs of the heart as he is head-over-heels in love with the family babysitter Jessica (Analeigh Tipton). Jessica in turn, is in love with Cal. Jessica keeps asking Robbie to leave her alone, but Robbie persists in making grand romantic gestures to try to get her to change her mind.

Another string to the story involves a young lawyer Hannah (Emma Stone) who rebuffed Jacob's advances earlier in the film, as she is awaiting her boyfriend Richard (Josh Groban) to propose. When this doesn't happen, Hannah decides to spend the night with Jacob, but to Jacob's surprise, they spend the night talking which he doesn't generally do with his conquests. It becomes clear that Hannah is a 'game-changer' for Jacob and he seeks advice from Cal about how to deal with a proper relationship.

The film carries on to an obvious and very contrived conclusion.

There are so many things wrong with this film; the first being that the film is so saccharine sweet and full of clichés that even Cal says 'this is such a cliché' when it starts raining after a confrontation. The second is that it really isn't funny enough to warrant being called a comedy (the Kermode rule is that at least 6 laugh-out loud laughs to constitute a comedy). The third is that there is too much Carrell and not enough Moore and Bacon, who are completely wasted in this film. That said, I thought that Gosling and Stone's performances were good.

All of this I could handle and accept as the film was fairly harmless until one of the last scenes, which is the graduation of Robbie from middle school (remember he is 13). Bizarrely, Jessica goes to the graduation and decides to give Robbie naked pictures of herself (originally intended for Cal).

I have read a dozen or so reviews of this film and no-one has mentioned how inappropriate this is. A seventeen year old girl giving a thirteen year old boy naked pictures of herself. Yet, if it was the other way round, I think it would have been mentioned in every review. Call me a prude, call me a killjoy, call me anything you like; but that scene did not sit comfortably with me at all and I felt that it sullied the film somewhat.

Verdict: Clichéd within an inch of it's life and failed to take advantage of the talented cast available. Film was bearable until the naked photos scene, which made an OK film with likeable characters into something a little seedy.