Ryan Gosling plays Jacob, a bar-room Lothario who helps depressed Cal Weaver (Steve Carell) rediscover his male mojo after his wife and high-school sweetheart Emily (Julianne Moore) requests a divorce. He is a little over-tanned and the clothes are a touch too slick, but he has a successful patter with the ladies that Cal – still bogged in heartsick domesticity, burbling out despairing family anecdotes to bemused girls in low-cut tops – yearns to emulate. It’s not that Cal particularly wants a string of fresh women in his bed, one senses, but more that there is nothing else to aspire to: he’s tried family life, and it left him fatally wounded. Then Jacob himself falls in love, and his sexual strategising is redundant.
In the wrong hands, this ensemble exploration of love could descend into predictable farce. But here, thanks to a sharp script and an engaging cast, it more than stays afloat. The characters wriggle free from their stereotypes, as when Jacob ends up in bed with Hannah (Emma Stone) in his slick apartment, revealing that he has a lonely addiction to buying items from the shopping channel: love creeps in on the back of vulnerability.
There are nice lines, too, skilfully thrown in en passant: a confused Emily tries to bat away her office fling, David Lindhagen (Kevin Bacon), with the words: “I mean you noticed when I got my hair trimmed last month, and that was huge, but…”
It raises a laugh but, like all the best throwaway remarks, it contains a kernel of insight: after decades with her husband, she became ravenous for the smallest scrap of spontaneous admiration.
If Crazy, Stupid, Love is a touch unlikely in parts – such as the teenage babysitter’s extravagant passion for the unwitting, middle-aged Cal – then it still richly entertains, and is often surprisingly sharp on the crazy mechanics of affection and infatuation.
No comments:
Post a Comment