Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011) * * *

 

Directed by:  John Requa and Glenn Ficarra

Starring:  Steve Carell, Julianne Moore, Marisa Tomei, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, John Carroll Lynch, Beth Littleford, Jonah Bobo, Kevin Bacon, Analeigh Tipton, Josh Groban 

The heart of Crazy, Stupid, Love. is what pulls it through even through some of the crazy, stupid parts.  The multi-person fight at the end reeks of unnecessary, desperate slapstick which was seemingly transported in from another romantic comedy.   Later, one of the characters makes a speech at a graduation ceremony which could only take place in the movies.   With those quibbles out of the way, I can now concentrate on the rest of the movie, which is warm, sweet, and sometimes surprising even though you know how it will all turn out. 

The opening dinner scene contains the first surprise.  A longtime married couple named Cal (Carell) and Emily (Moore) are deciding what they want for dessert.   You can tell by body language they have settled into a routine.   Emily says she wants a divorce, which floors Cal so much he jumps out of their moving car on the way home.   Emily slept with David Lindehagen (Bacon), an oily charmer from work who we can tell isn't husband number two material.   Cal moves into an apartment but still stops home to tend to his backyard garden and see his kids.   His son Robbie (Bobo) has a hopeless and hopeful crush on his 17-year-old babysitter Jessica (Tipton), who in turn has a crush on Cal.   This subplot leads to Jessica taking pictures she shouldn't have taken which wind up in the wrong hands.   Assumptions fly and lead to the aforementioned fight.   Come to think of it, this situation treads on ickiness as well.

Cal soon frequents the local bar which looks very, very stylish and has hot women hanging around everywhere.   In other words, it's a bar you find in the movies only.   While Cal nurses his drink and complains about David stealing his wife, the resident pickup artist Jacob (Gosling) who takes a different woman home every night, takes pity on Cal and makes him his project.   He will transform Cal from a frumpish complainer to a stud who can pick up women with the ease Jacob does, or at least close.   Cal picks up Kate (Tomei), who likes Cal until they find out the truth about each other in a funny scene where Cal tries to weasel out of an obvious lie.

We also meet Hannah (Stone), who is the only woman in the movie who finds Jacob an easy temptation to resist at first.   She is about to pass the bar, but her lawyer boyfriend (Groban) who her friend calls "Human Valium" just doesn't want to commit, so she seeks out Jacob to take her home.  What happens is tender and unexpected.   Jacob does what he is not programmed to do: he falls in love with Hannah.  They share the bed but wind up talking all night.   It's what Jacob didn't realize he needed.   Stone and Gosling make a cute couple, further evidenced in 2016's La La Land.   

Emily takes a liking to Cal's transformation.   She wonders why Cal didn't do it before.   It is suggested complacency took hold in their marriage, causing Emily to look outside the marriage for a little excitement.   Even David isn't too bad a guy.   He just doesn't deceive himself.   Carell and Moore can do lovable with the best of them.   We know about Stone and Gosling already.   Crazy, Stupid, Love. breezes through with enough charm to overcome some of the slippery moments.   It doesn't aim to elevate the romantic comedy, but wants to work well within the genre, which it does.