Crazy, Stupid Love

"Are you the billionaire owner of Apple computers?"

"No."

"Then you have no right to wear New Balance sneakers. Ever."

Crazy, Stupid Love was a frustrating experience for me and I had a constant love-hate relationship with the film overall. I really want to like this movie; I like the cast, I like the idea behind the film, but poor writing and direction end up producing a shallow mess. There are great scenes in this film floating among an ocean of mediocre campy nonsense and it ends up being just a series of missed opportunities.

This unfortunate reality is, sadly, not surprising given the pedigree of the those involved. The writer, Dan Fogelman, also wrote the screenplays for Cars and Cars 2, far and away the worst Pixar films ever made (though he also contributed to Tangled, which I enjoyed). The film was directed by directing duo Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, the masterminds behind such classics such as Cats & Dogs and Cats & Dogs: Revenge of Kitty Galore. You can see where I am going with this. However, everyone deserves a chance to redeem themselves for past missteps, but unfortunately this team does not succeed here.

Crazy, Stupid Love is about Cal (Steve Carrell) who is trying to piece his life back together after finding out his wife, Emily (Julianne Moore) had an affair with another man (Kevin Bacon) and wants a divorce. Cal moves into a small apartment and starts hanging out at a bar where Jacob (Ryan Gosling, dashing as ever) is, of course, able to nail every girl in the place. Jacob takes pity on Cal and his situation and offers to help him brush up his wardrobe and lady skills so he can also nail girls and get on with his life.

Cal’s tale is the main thread of the story, but several other stories take place at the same time. Hanna (Emma Stone, who I always enjoy) is a stressed out law student with a crappy boyfriend, Cal’s fourteen year-old son Robbie is in love with his older babysitter (who incidentally is in love with Cal), and Cal’s ex-wife begins to question her decision to leave her husband. The movie hops around each of these stories randomly until they all come together abruptly toward the end. While it is a clever idea to have the simultaneous stories intertwining together, it prevents the film from developing any one character (save Cal) to any real extent. The film spends so much time flipping around between the stories without anything eventful happening that it becomes tiresome rather quickly.

One of my biggest issues with this movie is that it spends far too much time on Robbie (the son), who is a completely unbelievable character. I am not sure what thirteen year olds Dan Fogelman (the screenwriter) has been hanging around, but most are more concerned with Call of Duty than their perceptions of love and what it means to be in love. It is not unrealistic for a younger boy to have a crush on his older babysitter (I had a huge one on mine), but the lengths that this film takes his silly story are maddening. I had the same issue with Manny in Modern Family for the first season but the writers quickly recognized the absurdity of his character and have toned him down significantly over subsequent seasons. I am not sure where this Young Boy Obsessed with Love with Wisdom Beyond His Years character came from (yes, I just invented this term) but it needs to go away and fast. The speech scene at the end of this movie made me literally uncomfortable and it was painful to endure to the end.

Jacob (Ryan Gosling) is the most interesting character in the movie and represents the story’s biggest missed opportunity. In one of the film’s best scenes, about two thirds through, you finally get to see beneath his shell at his true person. This is handled well and adds significant depth to his character. However, after this point he is barely in the film again and becomes a background decoration in the remaining scenes. We finally got to learn more about an interesting character (though a bit clichéd), but the writers are simply done with him and we are back to Robbie and his nonsense.

Crazy Stupid Love’s story is great in concept and it has a few good ideas and story twists (the main of which I actually did not see coming), the performances are great, but even the acting cannot overcome the poor dialogue, absurd scenarios and terrible pacing. I want to like this movie, and wish I could see past everything and appreciate a nice, heart-warming story, but I just can’t.