Crazy, Stupid, Love: Review

Rating: 8/10 (11 August 2011)

Like a breath of fresh air, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa's CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE rises above the heap of lifeless, senseless romantic comedies, and presents us with something more. What the directors mainly focus on iswait for it: love. But not just love, but adolescent infatuation love, teenage infatuation love, guilty love, regretful love, real love, fake love, all of these different types of relationships and feelings, that are not simply displayed, as in most other entries into this genre, but truly felt, and that's where the movie gains a heart that not only makes it fairly believable, but makes it alive and more than shallow. Above all, it focuses on two very specific thoughts on love: the one of the one true love (cliche at best) and then the sexual love. And the strength of the film is when the characters (who do in fact have feelings that are adequately portrayed) gain clarity on the difference. It's not the most sensitive or poetic way that the message has been portrayed in the past, but the movie never tries to be an art film, just a smart, character driven comedy. We get a series of different situations, which at first seemed too fragmented to make an impact. On that matter, I still believe the film suffers from not letting us spend enough time with, say, Emma Stone's relationship with Ryan Gosling, and though I don't believe it tries to cram in too many plot points, I do think that the balance is slightly off. Not enough, of course, to jeopardize any enjoyment of what's going on. All of these fragments pay off in the third act of the movie, when they come together in a way that might have seemed predictable, but actually made for some great character moments and hilarious scenes. It is this fact that the directors and screenwriter Dan Fogelman can take the clichés of the genre and use them to advance the emotional storytelling that's taking place. This doesn't work all the time: an almost cringe worthy moment happens towards the end of the film that strays into an area far beneath its smart writing and wonderful performances. Speaking of the cast, they were incredibly assembled and are what makes this film what it is. Steve Carrell's best performance, slick work from Ryan Gosling, another example of Emma Stone's throning as Queen Bee of Hollywood, and, most importantly, the always sublime Julianne Moore, who starts off this comedy with heartbreaking sequences featuring Carrell that make this more than just a feature for laughs. The best romantic comedy since 2009's 500 DAYS OF SUMMER, this film presents the very nature of it's main subject. Love IS crazy, love IS stupid, and we love it. A-