Crazy, Stupid, Love.

Directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa
Starring Steve Carell, Julianne Moore, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Marisa Tomei, Analeigh Tipton, John Carroll Lynch, Josh Groban, and Kevin Bacon

Change of pace this week: it’s going to be a serious review.

To be frank, I was expecting a regular old boozy Wednesday dotted with episodes of Martyn collapsing drunk over rows of unsuspecting moviegoers and me forgetting where I lived and asking the guy at the Kebab shop if he could provide directions to “please which way is me home? I… home? Ben?”

Instead we ended up remaining relatively sober and seeing a terrific movie. Never too late to teach an old dog new tricks, I guess.

Crazy, Stupid, Love is a simple tale, some may call it worn, but rendered in a way that is sweet, contemporary, unpretentious, and heart-warming. A brilliant opening scene shows us Cal (Steve Carell) and Emily (Julianne Moore) at the tail end of a 25-year marriage, surrounded by youthful romance and bankrupt of their own. Within a two minutes of the WB Production logo leaving the screen, Emily is confessing her extra-marital dalliances and asking for a divorce. Cold as ice, right? I had just cracked open my first Peroni. This woman, clearly, was not a time-waster.

Carell: learning the tricks of the trade

The rest of the movie evolves out of Cal’s ensuing tailspin, which lands him devastated in a nouveau-riche California lounge bar observing modern-day Don Juan Jacob (Ryan Gosling) working his magic on any woman around and getting pick of the litter night after night. Jacob, as it turns out, has also noted Cal’s sad-sack antics and, for nebulous reasons of his own, offers to take the new bachelor under his wing.

Married in his late teens, Cal has never had to think twice about dating and sex appeal. Now thrust back onto the market by the slickest womanizer this side of the Sierra Madre, Cal proves to be quick study and more of a catch than he thought possible. 

Unfairly pigeonholed as a supporting or TV actor, Carell here reminds us just how lovely he is as a leading man, and how strong yet subtle a performance he can give in the hands of the right screenplay and director. He never goes over the top with his comedy or his portrayal of a man in total emotional disarray. An early scene where he drives young babysitter Jessica (Analeigh Tipton) home having just split from his wife is spectacular in terms of how much weight Carell can deliver when only saying a few words (and being filmed over-the-shoulder, no less).

Carell and Moore: effortless chemistry

Although Cal becomes an able lady-killer in his own right, the movie is, at its core, about the pursuit of romantic love and turns people take on the road to it. It's about him finding his way back home.

Crazy, Stupid, Love takes viewers completely by surprise and separates itself from other like-genre movies in a number of ways. For starters: it is a film without villains. None of these people have set out to harm others; even Kevin Bacon’s homewrecking accountant David Lindhogen is somewhat pitiable in his cuckolding of Cal. Even though the movie is unabashed in its love-conquers-all paradigm, it acknowledges the complications of relationships in a modern world, even when none of the parties involved are malicious in the slightest.

The film is also a rare character-driven rom-com, as opposed to plot existing merely as a vehicle for coupling some eight-figure salary movie stars and dropping lame humour like breadcrumbs along the way. Even Jacob – whose appearances are brief and could have been mishandled by a lesser actor – is three-dimensional and sufficiently tragic in his opulence and solitary malaise that the audience invests in his character too.

Gosling and his winning smile

2011 is Ryan Gosling’s year and he is, yet again, a triumph in this film. A testament to his versatility and onscreen charisma, he is as effective, credible, and human as a trust-fund lounge lizard in light romantic-comedy as he is in heavier fare like Drive or Half Nelson. Even more commendable is his enduring sex-symbol status, since he’s one of the few celebrities who have properly earned it. Unlike Brad Pitt or Hugh Jackman (who, let’s face it, were just born pretty and aged gracefully), Gosling has a young puppydog face (a bit lopsided, even), is not formidably tall or broad, and doesn’t possess strong distinguishing features. What he does have is attitude. He has singular control over his image, his physical presence on camera, and can exude sex appeal on command. As Lars (of Lars and the Real Girl), he is utterly convincing as a completely repressed and introverted small-towner, whereas this latest incarnation of a 21^st century lothario looks sexy eating a slice of takeout pizza. He is seriously one of the great actors of his generation.

While not groundbreaking, Crazy, Stupid, Love is funny and brilliantly acted and fearlessly optimistic. You can’t help but love it.

Next week: The Three Musketeers