Crazy, Stupid, Love features a strong and talented cast, some laughs and a few different romances, of which, some work, but others feel awkward and unexplored. The ending overreaches itself, but by then the movie has garnered such a feeling of good will that I was able to forgive it.
The story opens with Emily (Moore) telling her husband Cal (Carell) that she had an affair and wants a divorce. Depressed, Cal moves out and starts going to a bar nightly to drown his sorrows. There he meets Jacob (Gosling), a ladies man who takes Cal under his wing to snap him out of his funk and get his pride back by teaching him to care for his appearance and how to pick up women. Despite his new found success with the ladies, it's obvious Cal is still in love with Emily.
Jacob is definitely a playa, but as played by the talented Gosling, he has charisma and a sleazy kind of charm. Gosling is able to convey that there are some layers to this seemingly shallow person. His womanizing days come to end when he meets Hannah, played with charm by current It girl, Emma Stone. He shares a night of real intimacy with her and suddenly finds that he needs advice from Cal in return about how to have a real relationship.
Cal and Emily and Jacob and Hannah are the two main relationships in the movie and when it focuses on them the movie really works. I cared about their relationships. Cal and Emily come across as genuine. They share a particularly sweet moment when Emily calls Cal with the excuse that she needs to know how to light the pilot light, but what she doesn't know is that Cal can see her through the window and knows that the pilot light was just an excuse for her to call. Jacob and Hannah share a good chemistry and a sweet first night together. You want to see their relationship succeed as well.
On top of those two relationships though the movie throws in a few that seem out of place, under explored and in one case, inappropriate. Cal and Emily's 13 year old son Robbie, has a crush on his 17 year old babysitter Jessica. She walks in on him masturbating, for which he apologizes, but he also tells her that he thinks of her while he's doing it. Jessica (unsuprisingly) isn't interested because she in turn has a crush on Cal. She implies that it's because he's a great father, but we're never really shown any great parenting skills. While he occasionally plays catch with son, his son seems to give him advice more than the other way around and his daughter is basically a non-entity. Not only does Jessica's crush feel inappropriate, it's never fully explained. Maybe if we'd been shown that Jessica's own father was absent or abusive or something, I might have bought her looking for a father figure, but no justification is ever given and so instead her storyline seems more like a male fantasy by writer Dan Fogelman.
Kevin Bacon and Marisa Tomei are underused in supporting roles. Bacon is the co-worker whom Emily slept with, but is basically a man in a suit for all the personality that he's given. That's through no fault of Bacon, simply the way the part is written. Tomei brings some comic life to her small scenes, one of which is featured heavily in the trailer.
When focusing on the two main relationships and the relationship between Cal and Jacob, this movie works. The script is funny and the actors all talented and likable. With a tighter editing job to remove some of the superfluous storylines it could have been even better than it is.
