Anything Goes : Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011) -… by Ryan Dennison

Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011) - ★★★½ Rated PG-13 for coarse humor, sexual content and language Runtime: 118 minutes Starring: Steve Carell - Cal Weaver Ryan Gosling - Jacob Palmer Julianne Moore - Emily Weaver Emma Stone - Hannah Annaleigh Tipton - Jessica Riley Directed by: Glenn Ficarra and John Requa Written by: Dan Fogelman This film is crazy, this film is not stupid, and this is a film that I love. "Crazy, Stupid, Love." totally cracked me up and refreshed my spirit of loving comedies. I also truly admired the structure of a mixed-up comedy, and the characters are very engaging and admirable. For the mixed-up comedy routine, we follow Cal (Carell), a man who is very nice and a good father and husband, but ends up in a downward spiral in his life. His wife of nearly 25 years years, Emily (Moore), breaks the news that she slept with a co-worker. Emily doesn’t seem too remorseful, and declares that she wants a divorce. We feel bad for Cal, but however, we can’t stop laughing, because Emily decides to tell him right before they order dinner in a crowded restaurant. Another situation is when Cal decides to take his depression to a upscale bar, and for a couple nights, loudly tells everyone of his misery. However, nobody is listening, except for Jacob (Gosling). This is unusual for Jacob, since his kind of scene is dressing like Christian Troy from "Nip/Tuck" and taking women into bed with him. He is very good at it too, since his suits look like they cost at least a $1,000 each and he has very good looks and charisma. But this night is different, instead of listening to his date’s story, his attention is on Cal. So, like Barney (another ladies’ man) from "How I Met Your Mother", Jacob thinks “challenged accepted” and takes Cal under his wing. Their friendship takes off with Jacob changing Cal’s looks, style, and attitude and to court women like there is no tomorrow. But Jacob makes his story clear that he is doing this so that Emily will wish she never dumped Cal for David Lindhagen (Kevin Bacon). Cal seems reluctant at first, but starts to enjoy his new way of life. In a funny scene, he hits on Kate (Marisa Tomei). At first, his sly advances don’t seem to work on her and is on the verge of leaving, but Cal breaks character and starts being totally honest with her. This ends up turning her on, and they leave together. So maybe Jacob’s skill doesn’t work on every woman. Jacob starts to be more genuine when he meets Hannah (Stone), a young woman on the verge of becoming a lawyer, but the bar exam still stands in the way. Hannah’s friend wants her to get her mind off things and to go to bed with Jacob, but Hannah is trying not to get another complication in her life. But one night, Hannah says “screw it” and starts to go crazy on Jacob. They go to his place, but instead of doing the you-know-what in bed, they actually get to know each other. I loved how Jacob decides to actually talk to a woman like a genuine man should. It’s moments like these where we are unsure of certain characters, but then we decide to like them. But at this point, we are unsure if we should still feel sorry for Cal, who is probably on his eighth, or ninth woman by now. Now for Emily, who started this whole fiasco, she starts feeling regretful. Especially after a date with Lindhagen (who nobody can pronounce his name right in the whole move), the babysitter Jessica (Tipton) tells her off for being crazy for letting Cal go. Emily then feels that Jessica may be right, but we know of Jessica is really in love with Cal. But Cal’s son Robbie (Jonah Bobo) is head over heels for Jessica, and makes endless attempts to get her to love him. Totally hilarious. So now that the complications for each character has been laid out, we wonder if we should empathize with them or just laugh at the situation. There were a couple of plot twists that made me gasp and made me turn beat red in laughter, but I won’t get into that. The story is very well-scripted and the acting was outstanding, especially for Carell for Gosling. "Crazy, Stupid, Love." is a number of things, all very good things.