Movie Review: Crazy, Stupid, Love

Denisa and I watched Crazy, Stupid, Love last night. My reaction? This is one of the first films in a long time that I really don’t know how to review. Did I enjoy it? I’m not really sure. For those of you who don’t know, the movie revolves around main character Steve Carrell’s response to his wife of 25 years abruptly revealing that she wants a divorce after she had a one night stand with a coworker. He falls in with Ryan Gosling, a complete womanizer who spends his evenings preying on women at the local bar. Gosling decides to show Carrell the ropes–teach him how to work the system to basically let him sleep with a different woman every night.

So.

The premise–that latter part of it, at least–is vile, in my not-so-humble opinion. For about half the movie, I watched, very uncomfortably, as Carrell descended deeper and deeper into changing himself to become a human leech instead of a loving husband. The movie didn’t completely glorify this, but still . . . It wasn’t a fun time.

Now thankfully, the film did turn things around in the latter half in some remarkably unanticipated ways. I don’t want to give away spoilers, however. The plot was very well done, but . . .

I’m just not sure I can really get behind this movie. Denisa and I spent a while after it finished, discussing the movie’s pros and cons. It’s definitely a strange duck. It’s as if a light romantic comedy hooked up with a depressing relationships drama, with the two films tag teaming their way through the entire 2 hours. One minute you’re laughing and questioning just how believable this all is, the next minute you’re just disgusted by how true to life and realistic these people are being–in an undesirable way.

Even at the end, I still wasn’t sure how to feel or what to think about the movie–which might have been the point, since I’m not sure Steve Carrell’s character knew how to feel or what to think.

How do I rate a movie like this? With elements I loathed and some I really loved? I can’t just take the average–it’s not a 2 star movie. But neither is it a 1 star or a 4 star. In fact, I don’t think I really CAN give it a rating. It is what it is.

Do you want to watch it? Maybe. I ended up overall liking it, I think. Which says something for the end, since (spoiler) I don’t really dig depressing movies. So . . . if any of this review has sparked your interest, feel free to check it out.

And now, for the comments, I’m going to slap a big ol’ SPOILER warning on them, and invite/encourage anyone who’s seen the movie to discuss all parts of it. I’d be interested to see what other people thought.