"Crazy, Stupid, Love." — It's All About the Connections

I didn’t think Steve Carell had it in him. I’ve watched him in several movies now, including “40 Year Old Virgin”, “Get Smart” and “Date Night." He’s been good for a laugh, and at some point in each movie listed above, one or two moments that made me empathize with him. In “Crazy, Stupid, Love.,” he has finally found a vehicle that allows him to portray a fully realized character.

The plot of the movie is relatively simple. The wife Emily (Moore) has an affair, is generally dissatisfied with her marriage and asks for a divorce. The husband (Cal) is thrown for a loop, angry, devastated and looking for revenge. At a nightclub, where he drunkenly tells the bar night after night about his wife’s affair, a younger man, Jacob (Ryan Gosling), takes him under his wing and teaches him how to become a ladies man with no heart and no conscience. If that’s all this movie was about, it would be mildly entertaining and a little morally ambiguous. There are a few scenes early on, especially when Cal meets up with Jacob at the local mall to shop for a new wardrobe, that are indeed truly funny. 

This movie is much more than that, however. The very real heartbreak displayed by both man and wife is transparent in every scene, regardless of how well they try to hide it and move on. It’s not easy to let go of a relationship after 25 years. Cal returns to his house after moving to an apartment in the dark of night to trim bushes and irrigate the lawn. It’s not played in a way to portray that he’s fanatical about his lawn, but more that it’s one more connection he simply hasn’t learned to let go of yet. Cal’s son Robbie is fierce when faced with a co-worker of his mom at the office, telling him in no uncertain terms that his parents will get back together. And then there’s Hannah, played by Emma Stone, who is the one girl that refuses to fall under Jacob’s charm.

And so there are connections, and stories within stories, that all tug at your heart strings while you chuckle out loud at the “been there, done that” familiarity of it all. The family babysitter, all of 17 and in full-on crush mode with Cal, resounded with me particularly because it immediately took me back to the hopelessness of my first crush.

This was the best movie of this genre — an adult comedy/drama — that I’ve seen all year. I highly recommend it.