I like Steve Carell, I think he's one of the funniest actors we currently have. I like Julianne Moore who is a terrific actress and just doesn't get the roles she deserves. I like Ryan Gosling, especially after seeing his badass performance in "Drive", this guy has a bright Hollywood future. But did I like "Crazy Stupid Love", the romantic comedy that unites all of them? Well, sort of.
The movie sees Carell being left by his wife, played by Moore, for her colleague at work, played by Kevin Bacon. Then Carell meets playboy Gosling and the latter also makes him a fellow womanizer. What a great setup, I thought when I first heard about the movie. Knowing that directors John Requa and Glenn Ficarra had written the refreshingly insane "Bad Santa" and "I love you, Phillip Morris" I was hoping for another remarkably bold movie.
Unfortunately the story plays it safe and has Gosling falling in love with Emma Stone while Carell and Moore realize that they still have a thing for each other. It would have been nice to see a film that's braver than your average Hollywood flick in its depiction of relationships but "Crazy Stupid Love" has more problems to fight with.
There are just too many unanswered questions that kept popping up in my head. Why does Gosling pick Carell as his scholar and not anybody else? What exactly drives Moore back to Carell, is it just his new way of dressing sharply? Why does Carell's son adore his dad so much for his love to his wife if he gets divorced? Why are Kevin Bacon and Marisa Tomei, two outstanding actors, wasted in filler roles? Why does Emma Stone's role feel so tacked on? And did we really need the part about the underage babysitter being in love with Carell?
If you didn't get my point, there's a whole lot of "too much" going on and none of the separate parts feels fully completed, it seems too many crucial scenes either ended up on the editor's floor or were just totally over-written. In the case of "Crazy Stupid Love" less would definitely have been more.
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