Rating of
3/4
Crazy, Fun, Movie
Taz - wrote on 01/29/12
This was a great movie about all the different types of love in the world and the people who fall into them. You have first time love, unrequited love, new love and old love. What is great about this movie is how it brings them all together seamlessly and keeps the whole movie moving while doing it.
The movie starts out and mostly revolves around Steve Carell's Cal Weaver and his Wife Emily, played by Julianne Moore, ending their marriage after 25 years. Cal loses everything his wife, his house and even his best friends(His wife says they as a couple have chosen to support Emily not Cal). Cal tries to move on and meets up with the shallow womanizer Jacob, played to perfection by Ryan Gosling, at a bar. Jacob take it upon him self to help Cal. He does this by changing the way he dresses and looks and showing Cal how pick up women at the bar. Eventually Cal picks up his first woman for a one night stand, Marisa Tomei, and starts turning into a womanizer like Jacob. He eventfully realizes at parent teach conferences with his ex-wife Emily, that she is the one he really loves. I don't want to ruin any surprises so I am just going to say that things end up not going well.
That was the old love story but then they tie in a fun little new love story as well. As Cal is at parent teacher conferences having his heart broken and stomped on we see Jacob run in to a girl he hit on at the beginning of the movie again named Hannah and played perfectly by Emma Stone. All she wants is for Jacob to take her home if you know what I mean. They end up back at Jacob's place and end up spending the entire night talking falling asleep next to each other. Once again I don't want to ruin anything for you so I am not going to go on any further about this story line. I will say that Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling make a cute couple.
Lastly the person who stole the show for me was Cal's son Robbie. He is 13 and in love with his babysitter who is 17 and a senior in high school. Needless to say she is not interested in him, she is actually interested in Cal witch leads to a whole different hilarious mess for Cal. Her unrequited love does not stop Robbie from endlessly pursing her through the entire movie. I have not seen Jonah Bobo in anything before but he did a very good job of playing a young teen in love and stuck in the middle of his parents divorce at the same time.
In the end this movie shows us that love can make us crazy and stupid and that not all love is not meant to be. But everyone does have a soul mate we just have to wait for them then make sure we work to keep them when we do find them.
