Crazy, Stupid Love; or the other Ryan Gosling film released that week (both on DVD and in the cinemas). Whilst Drive played on stylistic 80s films, Crazy, Stupid Love seemed to be coming in at a more traditional angle of the modern rom-com, a fact that initially put me off the film. What put me on the film, if you will, is the cast. Emma Stone impressed me so much with Easy A (and made me fall a little in love with her) that she's always a name which makes me more likely to watch a film, Steve Carrell hasn't always made the best film decisions, but in the office, and in general, he seems like a very funny and affable man and therefore I will always give him the benefit of the doubt, and then we have Ryan Gosling, a man whose career went from making popular love stories for teenage girls to making films about crack addicted teachers or playing a man who falls in love with a sex doll (and somehow making it seem normal and sweet), well a man like that simply has to be good (the answer in this case is yes.
The film has lots of stories going on, chiefly the breakdown of the marriage between Carrell and Julianne Moore (proving that she's just as good at comedy as drama), and Carrell being helped out, after a meeting in a bar, by Ryan Gosling who is coaching him on how to be charming and pick up women. If the film were merely about this then it would probably be mildly enjoyable but nowhere near as much fun. Okay, so honesty time; I'm a cynic, but I'm also a cynic who believes in love (does that make me a contradiction?) so this film worked perfectly for me. Whilst films such as Valentines day (bear with me) looked at love and concluded that everything always works out perfectly for everyone with very little heartbreak along the way (I want to throw up just thinking about it); Crazy, stupid love opens with a wife admitting to sleeping with another man and saying she wants a divorce. For most of the film the husband is then left reeling at this event, evidently heartbroken. You've got lots of unrequited love too, whether it's the love of an older man who you can never have, or the babysitter who you really shouldn't like, things don't always end up in the way you want them too.
Of course you've got some happiness, this is after all a rom-com, and I don't hold that against it. I found this film to be perfectly sweet, by which I mean it didn't make me want to throw up, but did make me warm inside, and it is also very very funny. It's a clever film that plays with convention, quietly mocking it whilst fully embracing it at the same time, and it's a film that relies on subtle laughs rather than a man falling over again and again whilst someone shouts bad catchphrases. In short this is the best rom-com I've seen for ages, probably since Easy A (though I do have an awful memory). It's the type of film that you could happily sit down and watch if you fancied a bit of nonsense, but also if you wanted a bit more. It reminded me of Easy A (sorry, I loved that film) and (500) Days Of Summer, both of which bucked the trend and showed how a rom-com blockbuster should be made. I hope this film finds an audience, the pre-valentines release will hopefully mean it will, Highly recommended, even for movie snobs, might just change your mind a little.
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