Dumb teen flick in disguise

Rating: 4/10 (3 November 2012)

This film is now floating around HBO and my 13-year-old son continues to tune in. Each time I overhear it, I am reminded how disappointing it is. We ran to theaters when it came out based on good reviews and admirable cast. When this happens it make a film like this even more hateful.
The thing that bothers me most is it leads teens and young adults to believe that casual sex, as it appears in this movie, as totally acceptable and the norm. That young women are desperate and go like lambs to the slaughter with anyone who buys them a drink. Also that pick up bars are filled with glossy, expensively dressed women and that everyone can afford an endless supply of $12 cocktails.
Steve Carrell gets tossed out by his unfaithful wife (Juliane Moore, really?, shame on you) and is set up in a new separate life and apartment in a day. Anyone who has been through divorce or separation knows that, logistically alone, it is 100 times more complicated and difficult.
Most infuriating in it's male cluelessness (spoiler) is the twist that they are the ingenue's (Emma Stone) parents. Couples who marry at 17 to raise a child do not come out as college graduates with high-paying jobs and lovely homes. If they do, that fact should be the remarkable center of the story, not a taken for granted plot point. And the daughter completed law school too!
As a high school teacher and a mom, this is sending a message to kids that you can make mistakes like high school pregnancy and you can get rewarded for it. It hardly ever works out this way, and the economic strain of young people managing these stresses would have killed the marriage way sooner anyway.
I guess it was not the filmmakers job to educate and protect youth but do they really want to look so dumb and uncool to people who appreciate intelligent movie and film making?
The only reason I gave this movie a 4 was for the love scene between Gosling and Stone which was great in and of itself. (Except the lift was obviously using a double--no disrespect to Stone personally)
Also, love Gosling as a fashion model. P.S. Miss you Michael Scott. I hope you didn't leave us to continue making bad movies.