I know, I know, my reviews of films are always late. Sometimes I see a movie over the weekend, and I just want to talk about it, and I don’t care if it’s late in coming. So, I saw Crazy, Stupid, Love yesterday and… it wasn’t that good. Would you like the basic no-spoiler gist? Julianne Moore’s character and Steve Carell’s character are married, and in the first scene in the movie, they split up. Steve is distraught, and he starts hanging out in what must be the only cool bar in town, where all of the beautiful women in the city hang out, but only long enough to spend one night with the bar’s only young, handsome regular, Ryan Gosling. Gosling takes Steve under his wing, gives him a Cinder-fella makeover and teaches Steve how to pick up women. Chaos ensues. Early on, Gosling meets Emma Stone, and she refuses his advances (because she’s in a relationship with a completely nerdy and scene-stealing Josh Groban), but then Emma comes around and Emma and Ryan end up spending the night together… and then chaos ensues.
There were some good parts, and yes, I was actually “surprised” by the “twist”. But overall, I feel like they wasted a lot of good talent, and I really think the screenplay could have been a lot better. It was like some hack wrote a completely average and boring romantic-comedy screenplay, then someone talented came in and started rewriting some of the scenes, and then the talented guy got bored. Some of the scenes were so great, I wish the entire film had been so awesome. But it wasn’t.
The best part? Ryan Gosling, without a doubt. He LOOKED amazing and he was just… this character was like The Fantasy Man. I’m not talking about the fantasy of the good guy who will be a great husband and father. I’m talking about the fantasy of the obscenely good-looking dude who comes on to you at the bar and takes you home and you have dirty, mind-blowing sex and that’s it. Girls need that too, and it’s as much of a fantasy as the other “marriage and babies” fantasy too. Gosling got the best suits, and when he took off his gear, he just looked… like heaven. He had ridiculous chemistry with both Emma and Steve too.
The worst part? Julianne Moore. It’s become a shtick for her at this point, playing these harried, neurotic wives and mothers, and beyond Julianne’s kind of sleep-walking performance, her character just sucked. Another bad part was the too-”precious”-ness of Steve and Julianne’s 13-year-old son. His story line involved him being in love with a 17-year-old girl, and when the girl rebuffed his advances, he started stalking her. It was creepy, not cute. The same could be said of Carell’s character too – there were a couple of times where the character was just kind of gross and creepy. Rom-com FAIL.
Oh, and did you know that The Bacon is in this movie? He is. He looked great, and I liked seeing him do a smaller little part, but I still have residual warmth for him because of X-Men: First Class.
My verdict: RENT it, but only for The Gosdong. It’s worth viewing for his scenes alone. Just fast-forward through all of the other crap.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
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