Crazy, Stupid, Love., infamous for its punctuation-riddled period-ending movie title, could mean two things: love is theoretically crazy and stupid and the movie title was just intended to irk the most humorless of copy editors. Or it's a multiple-themed movie that focuses on the crazy, the stupid, and love. Period.
Nevertheless, Crazy, Stupid, Love.'s playful title should not only cause an amusing double-take, it should be cinched. Yes, you should buy its marketing strategy of a movie title because it's going to be one of the best movies you will see this year-- and could possibly be fondly classified under your favorites in the multiple-genre of contemporary romance, drama, comedy. And Crazy, Stupid, Love. is romantic, poignant, hilarious.
Cal Weaver (Steve Carell) and his wife of 25 years, Emily (Julianne Moore), are sitting across from each other in a restaurant to start a seemingly perfunctory romantic dinner, the air heavy with dullness and tired ritual of a too-comfortable, too-stable marriage. And then out of the blue, Emily blurts out that she wants a divorce. And also confesses to having cheated on him to a co-worker named David Lindhagen (the last name's pronunciation is more complicated than it seems).
And thus begins Cal's devastating and painfully slow fall into the depression pit. He begins to frequent a single's bar, drunkenly blabbering about his wife and David Lindhagen-- until he finally caught the attention and sympathy of a ladies' man: the young and well-dressed Jacob Palmer (the ultra talented Ryan Gosling), a suave, smooth-talking player who offers the depressed Cal a chance to reclaim his manhood and win his wife back. What follows is a riotous Mr. Miyagi-like training of the ways of the modern playboy, with Jacob a hilarious cross between GQ's Style Guy and Esquire's Ask Nick Sullivan, with his blunt insults and sheer honesty, while solving the sartorial and romantic issues of the geeky, reluctant, fashion no-no Cal.
Crazy, Stupid, Love., although it centers on Cal, also revolves around other romantic sub-plots: Jacob Palmer, whose picking-up-women days abruptly ends when he falls in love with the quirky Hannah (Emma Stone); and Cal's 13-year-old son who is smitten with their 17-year-old babysitter Jessica (America's Next Top Model Cycle 11 Analeigh Lipton).
Crazy, Stupid, Love. delightfully and serendipitous-ly put together all my favorite--and talented--actors in a heartfelt and intelligently written screenplay by Dan Fogelman (Tangled) under the directorship of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa of the not-much-talked-about I Love You Philip Morris. The movie's got well-developed characters played exceptionally well by all, and I mean by all the actors. The movie also stars Kevin Bacon, Oscar winner Marisa Tomei and a famous singer that I will let you find out for yourself. But Carell of course stands out, delivering a brilliant performance of his endearing character with a combination of sympathetic and hilarious, comical and serious, the intensity of his agony displayed with beautiful subtlety. In fact, the whole movie focuses on subtlety; small gestures and fleeting eye movements that hide feelings of gigantic proportions.
Crazy, Stupid, Love. indeed is a surprisingly touching love story that will make you cry, laugh-- or cry and laugh at the same time. There are scenes that are a hairline away from turning into a cornball, but with much relief, it doesn't go there. Crazy, Stupid, Love. is a witty, heartwarming, lingering story of the common truth about pain and love, the crazy and stupid things we do for love-- and that love does in fact makes us crazy and stupid. Sometimes.
Must-see.
4.5/5
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