Wonderfully written sharp comedy drama

Rating: 8/10 (18 January 2013)

Cal Weaver (Steve Carell) starts struggling with life when his wife of over 20 years Emily Weaver (Julianne Moore) wants a divorce. When he meets Jacob Palmer (Ryan Gosling) at a club however, he starts to look at life in a whole different way.
Crazy, stupid, love is crazy. It's also diverse, humorous, contains tremendous comedy performances and is superbly written. Starting off with a wonderful scene between Moore and Craell the tone is set for a bittersweet tongue in cheek lash out loud comedy drama. This is wonderfully balanced, taking into account Cal's emotional dilemma and the conflicting decisions of his wife.
Steve Carell, renowned for his more slapstick style of humour expands into a great main role in this film, playing a dramatic styled performance but giving the grown ups some great one liners. After he gets over his first hurdle there is a scene where he walks into the pub, like he is the king of the world. This is fantastic and you will be smiling, pure comic timing genius.
Julianne Moore fits her role well as well, playing off the other characters with ease and necessity.
But Ryan Gosling is the real star of this 2011 picture. His bravado out for himself protagonist is cocky, is arrogant is whatever negative adjective you want to use. And yet he manages to seduce every woman he sees, making him the envy of everyman and the eve candy for every woman. This film for me excels through its drama rather than the comedy. Taking into account the situations the characters find themselves involved in, the story plays out slowly, getting deep into the character's minds and expanding to deliver a pinch of comedy at the appropriate moments.
In many ways the film may have exceled more if there was more screen time for Kevin Bacon and Emma Stone. The stories involving Weaver's son and his crush is rather stretched and playing off on last ditch attempts to win one another's hearts only takes the film so far without giving the viewer anymore hope.
This story also contains some great observations on love and what it means for people of all ages and who should know what love is and how to go about proving your love from someone. Adding to the family and lustful dramas elsewhere with a couple of excellent plot line twists, Crazy, Stupid Love is a film you will definitely want to see.