Not as Funny as it Should Have Been

Rating: 5/10 (18 February 2012)

Steve Carell is Cal Weaver, a 40 something dad who has embraced middle age mediocrity. He goes out to dinner with his baggy chinos, and New Balance sneakers on. He takes his relationships with his children and his wife for granted and is basically living with the cruise control on. Cal's wife Emily (Julianne Moore), drops a bombshell on Cal while they are out at dinner and tell him that she wants a divorce and that she has been sleeping with someone else.
Cal is devastated and is forced to re-think his life now that he has to live alone. In order to drown his sorrows, Cal starts hanging out at a local bar where he meets Jacob (Ryan Gosling), a womanizing playboy who agrees to help Cal find his mojo and win back his wife. I had some high hopes for this movie. They certainly found enough stars to be in it. Does it translate into a great movie? Not really. The problem with this movie isn't the acting it's the script. The plot is pretty ridiculous and there are unnecessary twists that just didn't need to be included in the movie. It plays out like a bad episode of Threes Company. Although I was impressed with the acting from Jonah Bobo as Cal's son, he is also the victim of some of the most ridiculous scenes in the movie. It's too bad because he could have had one of the more interesting performances in the film.
Julianne Moore seemed to playing the exact same character she played in The Kids Are All Right. A 40 something mom that cheats on her spouse and is confused about what she wants from life. She was the least impressive of the cast for me. The rest of the cast did a good job, Ryan Gosling continues to impress. He proves that he can do comedy just as well as he does anti-hero. I am getting a little worried that we are starting to get over saturated with him though. How about you give us a little time to miss you? I know that I was supposed to like this one, its 78% percent fresh on RT but for me some decent acting can't make up for a flakey unrealistic script that wants us to believe in one too many coincidences.