This is a sweet, charming romantic comedy. At first I thought it would just be a feel good movie without any actual laughs, but as it kept going, I found myself chuckling a few times. There's nothing overly special about it, but the characters are entertaining, the jokes funny, and it just left me with an overall satisfied feeling at the end. I'm sure that as time goes by this movie will kind of fade away into obscurity, but for right now I can definitely say I enjoyed this flick. 3.5 stars.
Best Part: The phone conversation between Steve Carell and Julianne Moore when she's asking him for house help was absolutely adorable.
Worst Part: The whole movie does, unfortunately, send the "no never actually means no" message. The subplot of the kid and the babysitter disturbs me mostly because of that (and also I'm not entirely sure of the ages involved, which puts it in kind of an icky place).
FlickChart: #423, above Death to Smoochy and below The Terminal.
3 comments:
I have wanted to blog about this movie since I saw it 14 August at a theater. I have always been in love with the craft of writing and I must tell you that if I had the talent to write the kind of story I would have chosen to write, it would have turned out to be crazy, stupid, love,. Dan Fogelman absolutely nailed this story for me.
Literally every scene felt perfect to me. There were times when I felt a scene might be "too much," that is to say that I felt the scene was crafted more as a vignette inserted into the film than a part of its overall narrative. Even when I knew a scene's function was to advance the overall narrative, I found myself getting lost in it.
The subplot of the son in love with the babysitter called to mind an incident that has stayed with me for twenty years now, of when I was in middle school and brought a rose to a girl I had a crush on in seventh grade. (Recounted here: http://travismcclain.blogspot.com/2011/06/whats-in-rose.html)
The subplot with Steve Carrell and Julianne Moore struck me in a wholly different way. It scared the hell out of me to imagine a world in which my wife would want to leave. I could not fathom functioning as well as the guy in this movie. At first, I felt a morbid curiosity but as the film progressed that morphed into true terror.
I had an anxiety attack that kept me frozen in my theater seat, powerless to move and I say that with no trace of hyperbole. I wanted to get up and to walk out of the theater, if only to put some physical distance between the film and myself and catch my breath, but I could not summon the strength to so much as stand, much less move.
The wistfulness that I felt at the son's subplot yielded to the terror of the father's until the entire film felt like a direct, customized torture preying upon my personal experiences and fears. I think I laughed maybe three or four times throughout the entire film. I thought more things were funny than that, but I wasn't capable of expressing it. Once, I laughed alone in the theater. It seems I was the only person there who understood why what Fogelman had written was funny (though I cannot now recall what that was).
In early October, I had to enter treatment for severe depression. Again, I don't wish to go too far off topic but what matters to the discussion about this film is that when I came out of treatment, my wife and I separated. All of a sudden, I was actually living the part of this film that terrified me so much.
I often make a big deal about writers not receiving nearly enough credit--it rankles me no end when I hear a movie called "Director's Movie Title" unless that director actually wrote the thing. Throughout crazy, stupid, love. I was acutely conscious that it was filmed from something that someone had written. Not in an artificial sense, mind you; but rather, in the sense one might get at a concert or a play, that the material was crafted elsewhere and then presented here.
Someone had painstakingly worked out these subplots and their honesty. Someone had ensured each character had his or her own, distinctive voice. Someone had skillfully created every part of this story, giving everything in it a reason for existing beyond the obligatory sense of advancing the narrative.
Sometimes when I'm listening to an unfamiliar song, if its lyrics are interesting enough I can sort of visualize what the lyric sheet looks like. Throughout crazy, stupid, love. I frequently found part of my brain wondering what the screenplay for this looked like. I wanted to know who wrote it, and it is very rare that the most important thing I carry with me out of a theater is the determination to learn about its writer(s)--and I say this as someone who has a sort of hero worship for writers!
No, I cannot recommend this as a comedy, nor can I pretend to be objective about it. I can't say offhand where, but I believe it's in my Top 20 on Flickchart; certainly, it's no lower than, say, #25.
I loved reading that. There's something magical about finding a movie that connects with you on such a personal level... even though it's then so hard to articulate.
On a side note, as much as crazy, stupid, love. is the movie I wish I had written, Between the Bridge and the River is the novel I wish I had written. Instead of me, however, its author is Craig Ferguson (yes, that Craig Ferguson). I highly recommend it. I was able to review that for my blog, though I don't know if I could have reviewed it had I read it recently, during the worst of my depression or my recent reassertion over it.
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