Crazy, Stupid, Love

Editorial

Steve Carell has been likeable as Cal, a middle-aged man trying to get over being dumped by his wife. To do so he has been hanging out with a young barhound (Ryan Gosling, showing sly comedy chops and about 54 abdominal muscles) who teaches him the ways of the stud/objectionable douchebag.

Carell has done the boy version of the fashion montage (putting on nice suits and having a haircut that doesn't look like it was done by a rusted Edward Scissorhands) and bedded a wired Marisa Tomei. It's all very fun, if not a tiny bit tired and steeped in annoying plinky music from Now That's What I Call Indie Cinema Vol. 3. Then a scene comes out of nowhere and smacks Crazy, Stupid, Love like a rail crash. In, you know, a good way.

Hannah (Emma Stone) and Jacob's (Gosling) romance is not so much a seduction as a throw down, a trading of moves and brush-offs. But their manoeuvering relaxes into something so stylish, so easy, funny, wildly romantic, casually sexy and really quite silly that the film seems doomed not to recover.

Delightfully, the rest of the movie does rise to meet it. After a first half that dashes about haphazardly, the relationships thicken. It's still romantic comedy, written by Dan Fogelman (Cars and its sequel), but it's shooting harder for the romance, unafraid to follow a big laugh with a longer breather.

Every sigh and misty eye is earned, played by a cast so skilled you never give it a thought. It's rare for a rom-com to manage even one truly romantic relationship. Most just crassly clatter towards the bit with the power ballad. This manages three, arguably four.

As such, Crazy, Stupid, Love is one of the most delightful, witty films of the year so far.

Olly Richards