Culture

Director: Glenn Ficarra (4/5)

Crazy Stupid Love is quite simply a pleasant romantic comedy. With moments of brilliant humour and a surprise twist, the story goes from convenient to engaging whilst neatly avoiding the pitfalls of most rom-coms. As a caveat I should probably mention that I am a fervent hater of Steve Carell and this is the first movie (or anything for that matter) where he doesn’t play a complete idiot spluttering out unintelligible dialogue and cheap gimmicks, and the movie is all the better for it.
 
The story centres on Cal Weaver, a man with a comfortable, if slightly unexciting, existence. Married to his high school sweetheart with two kids, Cal’s life is abruptly upended when his wife admits to cheating and asks for a divorce. Whilst drinking away his sorrows in a bar, Cal is fortuitously taken under the wing of local lothario Jacob Palmer (Ryan Gosling) who enlightens him on the new rules of dating in the twenty-first century: “The war between the sexes is done. We won. We won when women started pole dancing for exercise.” What follows is a rather typical montage sequence of the newly-branded stud Cal taking home a bevy of women. Hey, it’s a rom-com, right?
 
But wait, here is the game changer! Life long commitment-phobe Jacob suddenly finds a girl who makes him reconsider his swinging bachelor lifestyle, whilst Cal is finding out that the single life isn’t quite all it’s cracked up to be.
 
The film does an excellent job at never taking itself too seriously and even acknowledges its place in the romantic comedy genre with tongue-in-cheek references to some classics. The characters are likeable and interesting, including the supporting cast, which Hollywood often gets wrong. All in all a very enjoyable film, it is definitely worth seeing at the cinema. The chemistry between Gosling and Stone is perfect and it is incredibly refreshing to see Steve Carell veer away from his usual roles (albeit only slightly).