 |
| The colorful, eclectic poster for Glenn Ficarra and John Requa's Crazy, Stupid Love |
QUICK REVIEW:
A middle-aged woman decides to divorce the father of her children after she has cheated on him. Her husband then gets trained in dating and laying women by a local Don Juan. - But will he ultimately be able to win his wife back?
Good forces are at play in this second directorial work by director partners Glenn Ficarra and John Requa (I Love You, Philip Morris (2009)); Julianne Moore (Still Alice (2014)), Ryan Gosling (The Place Beyond the Pines (2012)) and in particular a well-acting and co-producing Steve Carell (Foxcatcher (2014)), making his first film for his Carousel Productions here.
Crazy, Stupid Love is a fresh romcom in which the kids don't break down at the news of divorce, and the talk at the school about the unruly teenager elapses without problems. - That is, it doesn't initially fall into the cliché pitfalls we've seen before. Dan Fogelman's (Bolt (2008)) script does implode later, unfortunately, as all the male characters are made to jumble together simply by accident. And the mess continues from there, as Gosling's character turns into a major a-hole all of a sudden, simply, it seems, because he has had more partners than our lead Carell...
Before this, the film has been amusing, enthusiastic and featured some good music to boot.
Ficarra and Requa are soon premiering their biggest, and possibly most risky work yet, the Will Smith-starring Focus.
In returning to the film at hand here, we can't get past it without pausing to applaud Gosling, who looks devastating in it:
Related review:
Glenn Ficarra and John Requa: Bad Santa (2003) - Zwigoff sticks dynamite under Christmas in this modern dark comedy classic (writers)
One thing you can't take put a finger on is the trailer for the film. Watch it here, - it's spotless!
Cost: 50 mil. $
Box office: 142.9 mil. $
= Box office success
[Not a super-smash hit, but a lavish, up-beat, broad romcom of the type that a lot of people (women not least) are always ready to watch, internationally. Crazy, Stupid Love made 84.3 mil. $ (59 % of the total gross) in the States. It proved an auspicious first feature for Carell's successful Carousel Productions, which even generally won better reviews than the one here, as well as both People's Choice and Teen Choice awards for Emma Stone (Birdman (2014)).]
What do you think of Crazy, Stupid Love?
No comments:
Post a Comment