Movie Review: Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011)

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Review: 🎬 Crazy, Stupid, Love (2011)

A Light Comedy With a Warm, Beating Heart
 4.5 out of 5



There are romantic comedies that aspire only to charm, and then there are those rare few that attempt something gentler, wiser, and more human.  Crazy, Stupid, Love belongs to the latter category. A film that treats the breakdown of a marriage not as a plot device but as an emotional truth that deserves care. It is a light, comedic take on a painful moment in life, and what's remarkable is how deftly it balances heartbreak with humor.

The story orbits around Cal Weaver (Steve Carell), a man whose wife (Julianne Moore) abruptly announces she wants a divorce. That moment could easily launch the film into absurdity, but the directors approach it with sincerity. Cal's pain isn't mocked, it is observed. The moment Cal finds out, his immediate response is not to react or yell but to jump out of a slow moving vehicle. This moment cements Cal as a good guy who does not know how to deal with the pain. This is the emotional starting point from which the movie expands outward into a web of characters all looking for something a little better, a little more meaningful than what they have.

The unlikely mentor in this tale is Jacob, played by Ryan Gosling with a sort of effortless, magnetism. Jacob is a complicated character, though perhaps not in the way he imagines. His life is a parade of tailored suits, craft cocktails, and one night stands. He is unapologetic about being a womanizer, a man who has perfected seduction and is charmingly upfront about who he is. And yet, beneath the crisp exterior is a good heart, or at least the desire to have one. Gosling plays him as a someone slightly amused by his own success with women, but not defined by it. He appears fulfilled, yet deeply lonely, and haunted by the image and impression of his parents relationship. There is a sweetness in him that leaks out at unexpected moments, hinting that his carefully curated identity is a facade masking a deeper more meaningful story.

One of the film's strongest comedic assets is Cal's son, Robbie (Jonah Bobo), whose deadpan delivery and accidental wisdom inject the movie with a wonderfully timed dryness. His coming-of-age story is not drenched in earnestness, but severs as a secondary storyline to break up the drama and inject punctuated humor into the main story. Robbie's unfiltered observations and unwavering belief in love become a kind of punctuation to the adults' emotional chaos, which in many respects is reflecting the end of the story for infatuation and young love. His comedic timing breaks up the seriousness just when the film needs it, reminding us that love, particularly unrequited love, can be both profound and absurd. Which is accentuated by the object of Robbie's infatuation, Jessica's (Lio Tipton) and her unrequited infatuation for Cal.  All of the secondary characters beautifully execute an interwoven story within a story which in all honesty could be expanded into a movie on its own.

Then there is Hannah, portrayed by Emma Stone with her signature blend of warmth and hesitancy. She is a young woman caught between expectation and desire, someone searching for more meaning in a partner that the surface level perfection she's been programmed to settle for. Her attraction to Jacob isn't just romantic, it is exciting. In him, she finds a person who is kind, intriguing and unexpectedly open.  Qualities that ignite a chemistry between them that is as intoxicating for the audience as it is for the characters. Their scenes practically glow, not because of grand gestures, but because they feel like two people finally taking off the protective armor they didn't realize they were wearing.

What makes Crazy, Stupid Love work is not the plot, though it's executed beautifully, nor the twists, which are delightful. It works because the characters are woven together in sincere entangled ways that complement the main storyline building robustness into the characters with heart and feeling. The film understands that love is messy, contradictory, embarrassing, vulnerable, hopeful and at times ridiculous. It knows that we learn about ourselves in the moments when things are not going well, and in the people who appear when we least expect them and perhaps most need them.

If a comedy can make you laugh, that's good. If it can make you care, that's better. Crazy, Stupid, Love manages both and does so with a surprising tenderness that lingers long after the credit roll.

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