Movie Review: Is It Crazy Not to Love These Stupid Abs? | FrontRow

This movie stars Ryan Gosling, Ryan Gosling?s abs, and a whole host other real actors like Julianne Moore and Marisa Tomei and Kevin Bacon. And okay, fine, Steve Carrell and Emma Stone can make the list, too. The surprisingly strong ensemble elevates Crazy, Stupid, Love, directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (the duo behind I Love You Phillip Morris), from sentimental adult fairy tale with a long, sprawling script to something watchable. I?d only be half-joking if I said Gosling?s shirtless torso does much of the heavy lifting.

Nice guy Cal (Carrell, with the occasional glimpse of Michael Scott) is puttering along in a 25 year marriage to his high school sweetheart, Emily (Moore, stuck in a wispy, fairly unsympathetic role), until she yanks the rug out from under him. She wants a divorce instead of dessert. On the way home from the restaurant, Emily spits up the gory details: she slept with her coworker, David Lindhagen (Kevin Bacon, of course). The admission prompts Cal to throw himself out of the moving vehicle. This could probably be considered both ?crazy? and ?stupid?, the first of many ?crazy? and ?stupid? things that happen along the rocky road of ?love.? The problem is, to extend the ice cream metaphor, there?s an unfair ratio of marshmallow fluff to totally freaking nuts.

Cal proceeds to drown his sorrows by sucking down an endless stream of vodka cranberries at the swanky town watering hole. It?s the only bar that exists in Americanaland, USA, and the joint is a bit too big city for the nicey-nice suburb they seem to live in. Seriously, everyone goes here, from badly dressed, soon-to-be-divorced dads to an endless stream of hot women in cocktail dresses.

Hannah (Stone) and her foul-mouthed friend are just two such ladies. We quickly learn that Hannah?s an almost-lawyer studying for the bar exam with a buttoned up attorney boyfriend. She catches the eye of professional pick up artist/trust fund baby Jacob (Gosling, seriously tan and ripped enough to inspire audible moaning from the women sitting next to me), but somehow resists the urge to help him out of his three-piece suit. He?s momentarily thrown by the rejection, but there are plenty of fish in the sea, and he?s already moving on? to lost-cause Cal.

See, Cal lost his manhood somewhere, and that?s why he lost his wife. Jacob, a hotter, more charming version of Neil Strauss only by virtue of? being played by such a likable star, takes him under his wing after a nice ?you in or you out? scene and an excellent male-bonding shopping/makeover montage. Cal learns the finer points of the Mystery Method (peacocking, neging, the like), along with the pleasures of random sex and? tailored menswear.

The inherent sleaze of Gosling?s character is reflected in Cal?s moments of moral confusion about the whole process, a decent trick? from screenwriter Dan Fogelman. Cal is a middle-aged man reeling from the sudden implosion of the suburban family unit plunged headfirst into an entirely new world of casual dating and mating, and Carrell does the complex character justice. Everyone, in fact, does well with their roles, especially Marisa Tomei as Cal?s whacky first conquest and singer Josh Groban?s surprisingly perfect cameo as Hannah?s boyfriend, who?s made out to be some sort of giant self-absorbed jerk but actually just comes off seeming like a real guy. Huh.

The script is expertly constructed though much too long, the result of? have to neatly knot together a substantial number of tangential side plots involving Cal and Emily?s 13-year-old-son, their regular babysitter, Hannah, and Jacob just in time for one big (dare I say it) crazy explosion. But the movie, dabbling in raunch, sentiment, and gross-out humor but committing to none of them, is toppled by its obvious, self-referential ambition to escape typical rom-com land.

Skirting easy categorization is fine, even encouraged, but the results are lukewarm. Characters own the clich?s in the hope that the awareness somehow negates the routine, and the so-called crazy things love makes the characters do is just the same formulaic perpetration of various adult fantasies like the idea of inescapable soulmates and the delusions females have about being the exception to a man?s womanizing rule. It?s just that these actors are better at selling the dream than most.

There?s a fitting scene in which Hannah has Jacob demonstrate all his tricks for getting a woman into bed. She knows exactly what he?s doing, while he?s doing it, and it still works. Similarly, we?re being seduced and we know it, and yet still find it difficult to resist the potential for sweetness in the end.

Source: http://frontrow.dmagazine.com/2011/07/movie-review-is-it-crazy-not-to-love-these-stupid-abs/

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