That Thing They Do

There’s a good 10 minutes or so of Crazy, Stupid, Love that I just don’t recall.

Well, I can remember the basics of the scene, but there are about, mmm, six sexy, finely sculpted, oh-so-good reasons for my distraction, and they’re all on Ryan Gosling’s tummy. The actor does look Photoshopped he looks so freakin’ amazing.

Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling star in this dramedy written by Dan Folgeman (Cars) and directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (I Love You Phillip Morris), as Cal Weaver and Jacob Palmer, a middle-aged man facing divorce and the young lothario who gives him his groove back, respectively.

Jacob Palmer – even that name sounds outstanding....

Oh, yeah, this review could very well be a one-man ode to Ryan Gosling, but he’s but one of the things there is to love about this deeply lived-in movie.

There’s also Carell, who as Cal, schlubby, bad-slacks-and-sneakers-wearing accountant Cal (I believe he was an accountant), delivers yet another subtle and superb performance in the great tradition he began building with Little Miss Sunshine and Dan in Real Life. His work here isn’t showy or in your face like it was in, say, Evan Almighty. There are not high jinks, y’ know, just a grounded emotion, an Everyman-ness that pulls you in and makes you feel like, yeah, you, too, would jump out of a moving car after your significant other announces they’ve strayed and they think they want a divorce.

Cal’s wife, Emily, is played by Julianne Moore. She’s cheated on Cal with a co-worker, who’s a bit of a pill and played by Kevin Bacon. She’s feeling pretty lousy about the whole thing, too (ergo the blurted-out confession right there in the opening scene), but mostly about how she can’t figure out when she and Cal stopped being an “us.”

Neither can he. And Carell plays that confusion and that hurt beautifully. So what does a guy like him do when his world comes crashing down? Evidently, he takes himself to the swankiest bar in town.

That’s where he meets Jacob, the super-suave ladies’s man/king of L.A.’s nightlife. Jacob’s a god, and I really am not just saying that because Gosling plays him (although that factors in). He. Is. The s--- in his three-piece (colorful!) suits and precise haircut. He’s got the lines and the moves.

He's got the conquistador thing down to a science, and he’s exactly what Cal needs to snap out of his funk. And what a funk it is. It’s actually the reason Jacob takes him in, becoming the Cher to his Tai. Cal needs a makeover double-pronto, not just because he could use it but because Jacob has had to up to here listening to his whining night after night. He feels sorry for the guy in every sense of the word.

So he makes him up, teaches him some game, gets him laid (Marisa Tomei plays one of his conquests).... And they bond, more or less. He becomes a Miyagi and a pal.

Elsewhere in Crazy, Stupid, Love is Hannah (Emma Stone), a young, systematic law school grad studying for the bar who hopes her colleague-ish paramour will pop the question. She’s recently met Jacob, but she hasn’t fallen for his shtick (she kinda sees right through it). But she’s met him, though, and eventually, as it would happen, their paths will cross again. Just go and check out the link to the trailer at the top to see where I got that Photoshop line.

And still elsewhere is Cal and Emily’s son, Robbie (Jonah Bobo), a thoughtful 13-year-old with a crush on his and his little sister’s babysitter (Analeigh Tipton), who refuses his advances, for she has a secret crush of her own.

Crazy, Stupid, Love is not a groundbreaker, but here’s what it is: It’s true.

It’s about who we are before we fall in love and who we become after we fall in love, and our conviction in the whole crazy, stupid thing. The road ain’t always pretty or easy, but it’s one heckuva journey. As, trust, is this movie (plus, Gosling!).

My Rating ***1/2

Photo: Warner Bros.