Awful, in spite of the cast

Rating: Null/10 (31 December 2014)

The overwhelming experience of this tedious drivel is of having dined out on a meal of caster sugar and saccharine. But what a cast! How to make sense of these first-rate actors - Moore, Carell, Gosling, Tomei and the rest - agreeing to lend their talents to this sort of teeth-grindingly irritating dross? It can't be just for the money.
Did Julianne Moore think it was perhaps another THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT? Did it remind Steve Carell of LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE? Please tell me Ryan Gosling didn't consider it on a par with LARS AND THE REAL GIRL. Believe me, this movie, so formulaic it's almost geometric, is not in the same class as those three. The only comparable idiocy I've seen in the past decade that sinks to this level is the Jennifer Aniston/Vince Vaughn vehicle THE BREAK-UP.
OK, OK, enough venom. I just need to avoid this kind of movie. Maybe you'll like it. For the sake of your cinematic health, though, I hope not.