Director: Glenn Ficarra and John Requa
Screenplay: Dan Fogelman
Starring: Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone, Marisa Tomei, Kevin Bacon, Liza Lapira, Josh Groban
One-sentence summary: Cal Weaver decides to reinvent himself with the help of Jacob Palmer after his marriage crumbles.
Review: Anyone who knows me will understand that it's been a tough year for me relationship-wise. Several months ago I had to end my relationship with a guy who I thought, in all seriousness, was my soulmate. We connected on a level I had never experienced with anyone else, but then he made several big mistakes and it wasn't possible for me to stay with him any longer. I remember one of the last things I said to him was that I was disappointed in how he didn't want to fight for me, and I deserved someone who would.
What Crazy, Stupid, Love. basically boils down to is fighting for the person you love, even when they aren't exactly receptive to your advances (which, in the case of Cal's son, makes you look a little bit like a stalker). I think in reality an adult wouldn't go to nearly as much trouble as Robbie does trying to get with Jessica, but we shouldn't disregard the sentiment behind his actions. Too often we see a womanizer like Jacob Palmer (Ryan Gosling) and we almost revere them; in fact, the movie does a really good job of making you think that maybe the best thing to do is to become Jacob Palmer and sleep with anything that moves. (And of course it helps that Ryan Gosling could probably charm anyone into his bed.) It works for Jacob, so why shouldn't it work for us regular people?
Except Jacob, without realizing it, finds Hannah (Emma Stone) and falls in love with her. Their first night together, they don't even sleep together; they just talk. And that, combined with Cal's sudden inability/unwillingness to get more women into his bed, is when the movie shifts back from glorifying one-night stands to the infinitely more long-lasting concept of soulmates. Like most trajectories of people who sleep around, I think they slowly begin to realize what an empty life it is to hop from bed to bed. It's lonely, and the little we see of Jacob's house exemplifies that perfectly. It's a beautiful (and likely ridiculously expensive) house, but he buys things he wants and doesn't really need, and he never finds any use for them. Wonderful metaphor for what the movie is trying to say: anonymous sex is great but having someone to come home to is even better.
Oh, and I would like to point out something else. There's a conversation between Hannah and Liz (Liza Lapira) where Hannah seems pretty okay with settling for Richard (Josh Groban) and Liz turns up her nose in disgust. "Look at you," she says. "If you end up with that, what hope do I have?" (And I think most of us will agree that we'd rather choose Ryan Gosling over Josh Groban.) None of the characters in the movie really settle, and I think that's the best possible message the movie sends. Maybe it's a bit unrealistic to expect some fitness model to come barging into your life to sweep you off your feet, but if you know you can do better, why settle? We all deserve to find our soulmate, and that includes the person you're settling for.
Final word: Crazy, Stupid Love. is a charming, hilarious, and poignant look at love, and I'll be buying it on Blu-ray as soon as I can spare the money.
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