"Crazy, Stupid, Love"

Last night, I saw Crazy Stupid Love. This is the newest member of the "Steve Carrell Rom-Com" cannon. It also stars Julianne Moore, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. Also making some memoriable cameos: Josh Groban, Marisa Tomei, Kevin Bacon and Nancy Carrell (Steve Carrell's real life wife).

The brief synopsis is  Cal Weaver (Carrell) thinks he has it all; a great wife (Moore), kids, house etc. That is until his wife announces over dinner that she wants a divorce because she had slept with her co-worker (Bacon). This leaves Cal to navigate the single dating world for the first time ever. His guide on this journey is Jacob (Gosling) who is the local bar playboy. He takes Cal under his wing after listening to the poor guy cry about his current lot for a third night in a row. He teaches Cal everything from dressing right to how to pick up women. Cal has a rough go at first but finds his way through the chaos. There are two other parallel story lines. The first is that of Cal's and Emily's son Robbie experiencing his first love and its complications. You also meet Hannah, a new lawyer and her experiences in the dating world.  I can't give much more than that because it will ruin the storyline.

I should say I am not a rom-com person. Yes, like most women, I admit to having a secret stash of some semi-cheesy movies. However for the most part I usually avoid them in the theatre. Juliane Moore and Steve Carrell moved this one to the theatre category. I was honestly not disappointed.

For me, there are two marks of a horrible rom-com:

1. Cheesy dated music.
2. A totally easy to guess plotline. 

This movie was thankfully missing both. To address the second point, Crazy Stupid Love had some plot twists you expected and others you didn't.  I liked the ending. You don't know how it ends for any of the characters except they all have a great deal of work and growing to do. I won't say this often but Ryan Gosling was actually my favorite part of the movie. He played a very Barney Stinson like character and like the HIMYM Barney shows the ability to change. Also the relationship between Carrell and Moore was very relate-able. You did get the feeling they had been together for a long time through their various inside jokes and other shenanigans (My friends pointed to the scene were they joked about switching their son at birth for example).

Yes, music to me is a very important detail in just about every movie. In Rom-Coms, I have often found sometimes directors will pile on music that will date a movie and effect its replay value (at least for me). I really liked the use of alternative and unheard of artists in the soundtrack, it added to the movie rather than distracted from the story.  This aspect alone would make me want to re-watch it.

Overall, I give this movie a 3/5. I put this in the category of good movie but not mandatory to see in the theatre.