Crazy, Stupid, Love

When it all comes together in an ensemble romantic comedy, it takes a great script, spot-on casting, inspired acting, timing, synergy, and brilliant direction. Crazy, Stupid Love has it all. Arguably, the best romantic-comedy of the new millennium era, CSL synchronized two directors and a screenwriter who had all previously been noted for their top success in animation films and television including the 'Cars' franchise, 'Tangled' and 'Angry Beavers' (in addition to non-animation film), along with the brilliant Casting Director Icon Cindy Marin who had casted 'Juno' a few years earlier.

The casting could not have been better, and with the inclusion of Kevin Bacon, connects the film (within 7-degrees of Bacon) to generations of great romantic comedies.

I can count on one hand the number of great romantic comedies in film since 2000 - they are rare, hard to pull off, and this is one of the very best. TV Series are a much better platform for comedy, as the comic moments can be spliced together without having the wrap a complete linear story around it in just two hours - TV is 30 minutes of gags; next episode.

Pulling-off a quality 2-hour story like this one, within the comedy genre (that is both sexy-sweet and funny at the same time;) requires effectively synchronizing a lot of moving parts.

Everyone involved in the production of CSL brought their A-Game, and it shows.

The key tandem in the film's success is Steve Carrell/Ryan Gosling - Without those two delivering the goods, the film would have failed.

They deliver big-time, making this Buddy-Film disguised as a Romantic-Comedy an all-time film arts success.

The Carrell/Gosling best-buddy relationship centers around a man in his 40's (Carrell) in the process of being separated from his middle-school sweetheart and first-and-only-love wife (Julianne Moore), reluctantly entering the modern singles dating world for the first time in his life.

He is completely unprepared and out of step with the times and the game, but runs into the Yoda or "Miyagi" master of ladies-men (Gosling) at a popular local singles bar, who decides to take him under his wing and mentor him in the ways of successfully meeting younger women after observing his wallowing in breakup pain and ineptitude in the singles game. The Pygmalion-like tutoring and transformation is truly brilliant fun to watch.

A complex intertwining connection of the entire cast starts to reveal itself piece by piece, and the hilarious apex of the film is one of the most memorable pay-off moments in comedy-film history.

The supporting cast orbits around the two new-best-friend buddies, and their acting excellence results in CSL rating as one of the all-time great ensemble comedies.

This was the first of three (as of 2021) successful movie pairings of Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, each subsequent project propelling both into higher orbits of superstardom - the third pairing 'La La Land' resulted in multiple award nominations, including an Oscar win for Stone, and with Hollywoods penchant for staying with winning formulas, it is likely we shall see more of these two together in film.

CSL fits the new millennial era culture well, and perhaps years from now will seem dated to this period (filmed right before the dating App explosion that occurred from 2012-2015 that replaced and swiped-away bar meetups, it is already aging in that regard). This just means everyone "got it" during its production, and certainly transferred that "get" to the screen with notable comic skill.

On my IMDb list of Top 25 Best Comedy Buddy Films.

Needless to say, I "highly recommended" 'Crazy, Stupid Love', and give it the proverbial two thumbs up! 👍👍

You know usually I'm not into romantic comedies, as I find that most of them fall short & are extremely cheesy. I really liked this movie though. One of the great things about it, is the acting is great. Everyone plays their part perfectly and you actually kind of feel for them in their individual situations. Usually when I think of Steve Carell, I think of a jokester. He was great in his serious scenes though, very believable. And Ryan Gosling, Oh my goodness, Ryan Gosling. He has always been one of my favorite actors. He plays a ladies man in this movie, trying to get Carell back on his feet after splitting with his wife. The two of them have great chemistry together and provide plenty of laughs, along with touching moments. I just saw this movie yesterday and I already want to see it again. That almost never happens that I want to see a movie again right away. Very cute. This movie has a little bit of everything and I think that most people would enjoy it. 9/10!

Greetings again from the darkness. From the opening scene it is clear we aren't in for a typically lame rom-com with caricatures instead of characters and punchlines instead of feelings. Instead, this one is all about the characters and their feelings ... realistic feelings of pain, anger, hope and frustration. Now don't misunderstand. It doesn't go too deep and there is still plenty of humor in the moments.

Cal (Steve Carell) and Emily (Julianne Moore) are sharing one of their many restaurant moments over the course of their long, steady marriage. Only this time, something spoils the comfort zone. Emily says she wants a divorce and later tells Cal that she had an affair with a co-worker (Kevin Bacon). What follows is as close to real life reactions as we could ever hope for in a rom-com. Cal is hurt. The kids are angry. Emily is confused. Their friends take sides.

The intertwining story lines and characters are both sad and funny. We see how people react when they are attracted to others ... or not. We see how people react when they wonder if their decision was rash. We see how basically nice people try to do the right thing for themselves and others, but still mess it up sometimes.

After moving out, Cal heads to a local upscale lounge that seems to be stocked with gorgeous women and only a handful of men ... every night. In real life, the line of men waiting to enter would be wrapped around the block. Still, one of the regulars is Jacob, played by Ryan Gosling. He is a thing of beauty to look at it and always quick with just the right line. His science is making women believe he cares about nothing but them. Cal is discouraged by Jacob's incredible success rate. Jacob notices Cal's negative vibe and agrees to train him. But first, the makeover ... wardrobe, haircut and conversation skills.

The polar opposite effect of what you might expect from Hollywood - these nice people begin to question their direction. Cal longs for Emily. Emily still thinks about Cal, but dates her co-worker. The son (Jonah Bobo) has a crush on the older baby-sitter, who has a crush of her own. Even Jacob falls hard for new attorney Hannah (Emma Stone) who has just walked out on her wet rag boyfriend (Josh Groban) who offered her a job, rather than a ring. Oh what a tangled web we weave. And that's just the stuff I can tell you! Cal's first conquest utilizing his newly learned skills is a teacher played with full energy by the terrific Marisa Tomei. She only has a couple of scenes, but as usual, Ms. Tomei makes the most of her screen time. The baby sitter is played well by Analeigh Tipton, but it's interesting to note (in real life) she is 3 days younger than law school grad Hannah (Stone).

All of the actors are top notch here. Steve Carell continues to get better ... this is a superior movie to Date Night (with Tina Fey). Julianne Moore is solid, though her character is mostly mopey. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are both outstanding. Gosling is none for mostly offbeat, dark independent films but shows again how easily he slides back into sex symbol. Ms. Stone is headed for super-stardom. She was really good in Easy A and has a star-making turn in the upcoming film The Help. After that, it's on to the new Spider-Man for her.

Glenn Ficarra and John Requa are the co-directors and were responsible for the much less mainstream I Love You Phillip Morris, with Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor. Surprisingly the film was written by Dan Fogelman, who is known for his script writing on the animated Cars movies.

No question women will enjoy the film, but the surprise is, many men will relate to what's going on with the Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling characters. There is enough humor to keep everyone happy and enough strong writing to say this is a very good movie.

Romantic comedies aren't usually my kind of thing but I thought this film was great. The cast is strong (Gosling, Stone, Carell) which is the main reason I chose to watch this film. It is quite a long film but the plot is really clever. There is plenty of different things going on in the film and the way it all gets linked together is brilliant and certainly something I did't see coming.

There are some genuine laugh out loud moments and the film is straight to the point. The cast is great and all work together well, the plot is fresh and clever and it really was one of the best romantic comedies I have seen (haven't seen many but still) - Would recommend this film to anyone.

8/10

My initial reaction is that this film is the best romantic comedy that I've seen in years. The genre has been pretty devoid of quality lately. So, I don't know if that plays a part or not and I really don't care at this point. I enjoyed everything about this movie. It has tremendous heart and charisma and it's so very easy to get caught up in to the lives of these characters. A certain degree of patience is required while viewing because some secondary characters that feel unnecessary to the story are worth getting to know. Steve Carell's character is the one everyone empathizes with and when the movie shifts away from the "A" story you wonder why and start to think that the "B" story is going to be muddled or cliché or one to endure. Well, they're not and everything comes together in a wonderful fashion. The entire cast here is perfection. The overall message may be one to debate but it doesn't matter because the ride and this film are just so smart and so well done.