Courtesy - The Sunday Leader By Sumaya Samarasinghe
Poor Cal, he is probably on his “date night” with his wife of 25 years and when time comes to order dessert, she asks for a divorce!
From the look on his face, this mild mannered, trainer wearing, dull insurance executive suddenly sees his life fall apart and of course had absolutely no idea that his marriage was in shambles. Steve Carrell and Julianne Moore play this couple in crisis extremely well. We have got used to seeing Carrell come as sweet likeable nerdy heroes. Here, he is just an average Joe with the picket fence house, cute kids,a steady career and a beautiful and successful wife.The problem is that Cal has lost his manhood, become an absolute bore and Emily can’t take it anymore. Cal quickly moves out his stuff and gets himself a lousy little bachelor’s pad and in the evenings he goes to a bar to drown his sorrows and tells aloud to whoever is willing to listen, the story of his life! One evening Jacob, a sleek ladies man played by Ryan Gosling who is probably the best actor of his generation,takes pity on Cal and offers to groom him to become quite a seducer himself.. This part of the plot may sound a little familiar as the “grooming” to land the girls theme has been used many times before like in the hilarious Hitch with Will Smith. However in this case Cal gets into the groove very fast and becomes a talented bar swinger, by the way it is amazing how a good haircut and decent clothes can change a man and Carrell goes from plain and insignificant to quite handsome and attractive.Meanwhile Jacob bumps into Hannah (Emma Stone) at the bar and though she rejects his advances, the smooth talking womanizer seems completely frazzled by the charismatic red headed Stone, a lawyer who is just about to sit for the bar exam and is in a relationship with Richard (Josh Groban) her boring lawyer boyfriend.
Cal and Emily’s kids deal differently with their parents’ divorce, the eight year old seems only remotely bothered about the separation, the sensitive 13 year old son Robbie has fallen madly in love with their 17 year old babysitter Jessica and is going through emotional issues of his own. The great things about Crazy, Stupid Love are first and foremost its cast, a little more of Julianne Moore and Emma Stone on screen would have made it perfect.From Cal to Jacob, Emily, Robbie, Jessica the lovely babysitter who nurses a terrible crush on Cal and her parents ; all the characters seem real and human. Deeply flawed and often making some serious mistakes and judgmental errors; their charm and likeable sides are still given prominence. Even Jacob who sleeps with a different woman practically every night until he falls in love with Hanna is never portrayed as an evil seducer. Julianne Moore who breaks up her marriage on the grounds of boredom and infidelity is obviously still in love with her husband and regretful of her actions. Carrell is touching when even after sleeping with over nine women and knowing that his wife was unfaithful towards him still believes that she is his soul mate.The same goes for Robbie who openly displays his love for Jessica.
Now this is where the film becomes a little naïve, but it is refreshing and pleasing to watch a movie where people are neither aggressive nor evil, but just a bunch of optimists who think that once you find your perfect partner, the search stops there.
I could have done without Carrell speech about true love and soul mates at his son’s graduation ceremony. If a 13 year old who once believed in true love suddenly develops a cynical streak because his parents are splitting and the babysitter he is in love with rejects him, big deal, he will get his heart broken and be rejected numerous times before finding the one, so may as well develop a thick skin and be aware of real life and its challenges! But to be fair, Cal’s mixed emotions of one day wanting to move on from Emily and the other calling her loudly his soul mate on a microphone in front of hundreds of people , are sometimes the messy and uncertain feelings one may have during a divorce, basically everything becomes an emotional bundle of uncertainty. Apart from that, Crazy Stupid Love is easy to the eyes and every single performance reinforces the movie. The directors have kept it clean,simple and sweet which is really refreshing nowadays.
The film can be watched by everyone.
