"Crazy, Stupid, Love"

"Crazy, Stupid, Love" is a wonderful movie starring Steve Carrell and Julianne Moore, and sending any woman with eyes in her head over the moon over Ryan Gosling. This was a movie with a story that sounds and feels real, and it is written very well - looking back, not in vignettes, but with carefully constructed dialogue between and among the characters. Many in the audience have probably stood in the shoes of at least one, if not more, of the characters; perhaps that is why the story rings so true.

The movie is billed through its trailers as a comedy, but it is not. We can laugh at some scenes, but essentially, the story is of human drama, how we live, how we love, how our early relationships can affect what happens later in our lives. Some of that is painful to watch, and painful to re-live, but the message of hope, love, and living life is uplifting regardless of the pain we have lived through.

I loved the movie so much, I went twice. Max was away for a few days, and I wanted to see it and thought he would not be eager to sit through something that could be construed as a chick flick, although he doesn't usually mind. I convinced him to go the day he got back, which was the day after I saw it the first time. I was not disappointed. It was as good the second time as it had been the first.

And truly, it is not a chick flick; it is a movie about guys - their friendships, their learning to support each other, their trying to meet women's expectations, and their learning to live in a world where their roles as husbands and fathers usually trump their roles as themselves. As hard as it is to be a woman, I think that men have it more difficult: women have the ability to make choices such as working or staying home with the children without too much censure from society, but men's roles are much more rigid. What does society say about a man who chooses to eschew a job in order to be a stay-at-home dad? Not too much that is good.

On another note, Steve Carrell is a mystery to me. I have never really become involved with "The Office," because I find it much too painful to watch, having spent too many years in offices similar to the one that is portrayed on the television show. In fact, Carrell's character is the one who bothers me the most. However, I have seen him in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," "Dan in Real Life," and now "Crazy, Stupid, Love," and I believe he is a really good dramatic actor. Maybe he is funny, but he made me believe, in all three of these movies, that he was the non-funny person he was playing. I think I wish he would spend more time doing these kinds of films instead of trying to be funny in things that simply aren't.

So. "Crazy, Stupid, Love." Go see it.