Some terrible moments destroy an occasionally really solid mix of comedy and drama

Rating: 4/10 (5 March 2017)

"Crazy, Stupid, Love." is an American movie from 2011, so it had its 5th anniversary last year. It runs for almost two hours and was directed by Ficarra/Requa, who have collaborated on quite a few projects in the last two decades. The writer is Dan Fogelman and he was mostly busy with animated films before this one here, but it may be his most famous work now. One reason for that is the cast that includes so many known names, three Oscar winners even. I will not say the names as you can check the list for yourself, but what makes this one interesting in 2017 is that Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone from "La La Land" play a couple in here as well. The core subject in this 120-minute movie is love and the complicated ways into and out of it. Divorce is involved, unrequited love, parental love, love that isn't really love because it's all about sex etc. So you could think that this is a decent movie to watch with your significant other. Yes and no I would say. It is without a doubt entertaining to watch from start to finish and it is easy to care for what happens next to the characters. Also the film does not take paths in terms of the unrequited love segments I mentioned earlier that would have felt unrealistic.
But all it does right there, it does wrong on other occasions. For me a good comedy/drama always has to fulfill at least a basic component of realism (unless it is a fantasy film, I guess) and there were 4-5 moments when this one doesn't and the people who made this sacrificed realism for entertaining/crucial plot twists. The worst example is probably when we find out about the parents of Stone's character. Another example would be Carell's character's final speech at the school that feels really as if it takes itself way too seriously and it hurt the film. What is also crucial is how important these moments were for the movie itself and that's why it was even more devastating to see how things really went wrong there. Another example would be when the teenage girl finds the younger boy's comments at the end actually flattering after being annoyed by them throughout the entire film or when he starts talking in front of the entire school about his masturbation techniques. It is American Pie level (I mean that in a bad way) there and these moments really destroyed all the good from other scenes. It's such a shame how it turned out eventually and I cannot give this film a thumbs-up because the lowest lows are really much more significant than the highest highs (if there were any at all). Also Ryan Gosling was definitely not deserving of a Golden Globe nomination here. He is forgettable in the first half of the film and mediocre in the second. Also he is clearly supporting. Overall, a thumbs-down from me. Pretty overrated film that does not deserve to be half as popular as it actually is.