N16 Film Title, Director, Actor
Crazy Stupid Love
"Crazy, Stupid, Love" is a sweet romantic comedy about good-hearted people. Imagine that. No snark. No raunch. It has a lot of cynicism, but that's employed only to be corrected. Nobody here wishes anybody ill, and the movie comes out foursquare in favor of marriage. Yes, the characters commit adultery, but they learn to their relief they were mistaken…The movie opens with a bombshell. Cal (Steve Carell) asks his wife Emily (Julianne Moore) what she wants for dessert. "A divorce," she says. Cal, who has grown complacent in his marriage, is stunned. So are his kids, especially 13-year-old Robbie (Jonah Bobo), who has a crush on Jessica (Analeigh Tipton), his 17-year-old baby-sitter...
The strength of the movie, however formulaic its structure, is that it is slightly more thoughtful about its characters. It's not deep, mind you, but it considers their problems as more than fodder for comedy. It allows them to have real feelings, even some that surprise them, and it leaves them some room for growth. At the end, after as many strands have been brought together as seems possible, I felt an undeniable satisfaction.[Roger Ebert]
The three-strand multi-generational romcom can be a cumbersome beastie. And there is something slightly puffy about this ensemble effort that ties its strands together a touch too tightly two-thirds of the way through but still leaves enough hanging at the end to be credible. For the oldsters, we have Steve Carrell and Julianne Moore, splitting up after 25 years because she's slept with Kevin Bacon and he's gone dull. For the 20-somethings: Ryan Gosling, ripped and slick as a ladies man who coaches Carrell in the art of the pick-up before himself falling hard for Emma Stone. And for the teens, a tedious thread involving Carrell and Moore's son, who has a crush on the babysitter, who in turn fancies dad. This is airbrushed relationship angst, for which there's definitely a time and a market, but the general blandness does make those flashes of real spike and anger (mostly involving Marisa Tomei's erratic teacher) zing like booze-soaked currants in a bun.[Guardian]