Crazy Stupid Love (2011)

Watched 'Crazy Stupid Love' (2011) on Netflix.

This is an entertaining movie.

There is a long married couple that is breaking up, a casanova who suddenly find himself becoming serious about a girl, a teenage boy in love with his adolescent baby sitter, the adolescent baby sitter in love with a middle aged man, a woman who has cheated on her husband of long, but still loves him.

The threads remain separate for a long time, and then suddenly they all converge and during the scene of the scuffle, you will find yourself laughing aloud, and falling off your chair.

There is a flaw in the script, in the opening scene itself, which you will perceive only later in the movie.
Emily (Julianne Moore) asks for divorce, following a one day fling with David, her coworker. Cal (played by Steve Carell) agrees without a word but right from that point on she misses him, and wants to keep him somehow.

When David reaches out to her, she shows no particular interest.
If Emily wasn't in love with David, and if this thing just happened between them incidentally, why would she ask Cal for a divorce? That was an overkill.

The script should have shown their separation to have been a consequence only of her confession to Cal about her fling with David. That's it. Her asking for divorce is inconsistent with the story that follows. Just doesn't fit in.

As the couple drives home, his wife refuses to stop explaining her decision to part ways, in spite of his insistence that she shup up. Cal drops off the moving car after. It is something I have so often thought about while being seated on the window seat and imagining my imaginary fears. I have never seen such a scene before, of a man opening the car door and rolling off. Its the first of its kind.

Jacob Palmer (Ryan Gosling) though a casanova doesn’t evoke disgust or disapproval because he is sincere about what he is doing. Though he is using little tricks, he is only using them to charm the ladies, he isn’t creepy.
“You are wearing that dress as if you were doing it a favour” is one such charming thing he says to Hannah (Emma Stone) while trying to woo her.

I can so relate to Jacob, the casanova, becoming serious about Hannah. During my days in Jain college that was full of flirtatious young boys and girls, I had heard someone remark that these same guys are the ones capable of becoming very serious when they find the right one. I think its true.

In western movies, the sight of children that are not children enough is a painful one.
A 13 year old boy falling in love with a 17 year old girl would be perfectly alright if it were shown to be puppy love or calf love. Just an emotional thing.
But no, even at 13, the boy doesn't know to love with only his heart; he is shown doing adult things like touching himself while looking at the girl's photo and even discussing it with the girl later. Disturbing. Gross.

A 17 year old girl falling in love with a middle aged man too is understandable. But taking naked photographs of herself for showing them to the man is gross, something you would expect from a woman soliciting, not from someone in love. Kind of coquettish, slutty. The cherry on top, in the last scene, she hands these photographs to the little kid in love with her, as a present, to ‘get him through high school’!

#westerncinema