New romantic comedy applies across generations
"Crazy, Stupid, Love." is the second romantic comedy this summer that acknowledges the enduring clichés within its genre (the first being "Friends with Benefits"). Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, the minds behind the underrated "I Love You Philip Morris" (2009), direct this smartly executed romance/comedy/drama/bromance film that, in a way, reaches out to different generations of lovers.
The movie begins with Cal (Steve Carell) and Emily Weaver (Julianne Moore), teen sweethearts now in their 40s. Emily confesses her infidelity with a co-worker (Kevin Bacon) to a stunned Cal and opts for a divorce. Meanwhile, Cal is fully unaware that his children's 17-year-old babysitter Jessica (Analeigh Tipton) has a crush on him while his 13-year-old son Robbie (Jonah Bobo) is optimistic that the babysitter is his soulmate. This romance definitely isn't going anywhere, but Robbie insists on embarrassing himself to ineffectively impress her.
After moving out, Cal begins patronizing an upscale singles bar, loudly moans about his romantic woes and catches the attention of the smooth, sharply dressed womanizer Jacob Palmer (Ryan Gosling). Jacob offers to bestow Cal with some guidelines on how to meet women in today's dating world, leading up to Cal's successful seduction of women like teacher Kate (Marisa Tomei). Behind the scenes, Jacob has his eyes on sassy rookie lawyer Hannah (Emma Stone), the only woman to resist his charms. This is because she already has a beau (Josh Groban) from whom she is expecting a commitment.
The Cal/Emily dynamic is something extraordinary in the romantic comedy genre. Instead of centering upon two young leads who fall in love throughout the story, the story follows a middle-aged couple past the "honeymoon stage" whose marriage revolves around daily routines while the passion dies out. The relationship between the divorced couple is deeper and more productive than the usual relationship between romantic comedy characters. Emily exhibits grief-stricken regret at leaving her husband while Cal exhibits self-pity centered on not being the husband he should have been.
There is only one real flaw within the film coming from Dan Fogelman's screenplay that makes the story a little too Cal-centered. For a lengthy period of time, the Cal/Emily relationship plays for a huge portion of the film, making the other romances feel like subplots. The screenplay only begins to fully focus on Jacob's own romantic struggle more than halfway into the film, making his pairing with Hannah partially manufactured. This results in the film having a slight uneven flow due the inequalities among screen time with its large cast and various romances.
The talented cast, along with the film's sweetness and hilarity, easily makes up for this minor flaw. There is great chemistry exhibited all around the main cast members, most notably the comedic combination between Carell and Gosling. In fact, the greater scenes in the film occur when Jacob is mentoring Cal on "the game." He assists Cal in shopping for more masculine clothing and hilariously slaps Cal in the head after he considers shopping at Gap.
Carell expresses a more controlled character portrayal, as we have seen in "Little Miss Sunshine" (2006) and "Dan in Real Life" (2007), while Gosling breaks new ground in his comedic turn. Stone displays as much charm into her character as she has throughout her career while Moore gives a great performance with her reaction shots and throwaway lines (she points out how bad the "Twilight" films are). Marisa Tomei makes the most out of her little screen time by providing comedy when needed.
At one point in the film, Jacob talks with Kevin Bacon's character and tells him that he's confident his parents will "live happily ever after." Thankfully, the film isn't that clichéd. It's smart, it's hilarious and it's fresh — a quality that's somewhat lacking in the world of romantic comedies.