Directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa
Screenplay by Dan Fogelman
Stars: Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone, Jonah Bobo, Analeigh Tipton, John Carol Lynch, Beth Littleford, Marisa Tomei and Kevin Bacon
I was feeling down in the dumps. Getting out of the funk I wanted to see, a romantic comedy. Any romantic comedy will do. Something to pick up my spirits, I decided to watch this movie OnDemand. I'm glad I did. It's like Prozac for cinephiles.
Basic premise of the movie is a series of interconnecting stories of people falling in and out of love. We are introduced to Cal and Emily Weaver (Carell, Moore) that are coming home from a boring dinner where Emily reveals that she wants a divorce and admits to having an affair with her co-worker David Lindhagen (Bacon). Drowning in his watered down vodka cranberries, a handsome womanizer named Barney Stintson -- I mean, Jacob Palmer (Gosling) teaches Cal his ways of picking up women and boning them. Jacob doesn't tell Cal is that he is constantly thinking about a woman that rebuffed his advances, Hanna (Stone). There is also a subplot about Cal's 13-year-old, Robbie (Bobo) is becoming stalkerish with his love for the 17-year-old babysitter, Jessica (Tipton) who is also in love with Cal. Hilarity ensues.
I wanted to be entertained with a movie that would pick my spirits up and it did. I was surprised at how much heart the movie had. Sure the movie had the obvious tropes that a romantic comedy has to go through, but I liked that they made of the clichés as they were happening. The movie was very meta that way. I thought that the movie was fine then, I paused it and I still had forty minutes to go. I thought it was wrapping up. I'm glad that I kept watching. The ending of the movie was unexpected, heartfelt and a bit silly. I wanted that.
Ryan Gosling was nominated for a Golden Globe for his performance. I thought he was very good with his scenes with Emma Stone. The other performances were fine for the most part. I thought the son's storyline was a bit bothersome to me. It was very creepy in his attempts to win his soul mate over. I have to give a special shout out to Marisa Tomei who plays Kate. She was hilarious in the limited time that she had on screen.
My Rating
Thank You Branden. I agree with you that Robby's attempts to win the heart of his babysitter Jessica was extremely creepy. He is at the begining stages of becoming a full blown rapist. The movie forgives his actions by talking about a soul mate. Since his dad and mom talked about being soul mates. Obviously the same thing must be true for him and Jessica. The problem is both of his parents felt the same way about eachother from the start. Him and Jessica don't have any connection what so ever. Robbie loves her very much but we never understand why. She is nothing more than the hot girl he wants to fuck.
ReplyDeleteThe ending really seals Jessica's fate,because if she does go out with other boys. I'm pretty sure Robbie will kill them and do horrible things to her to teach her a lesson
If I was Jessica, I wouldn't give Robbie that masturbation material at the end. He'll probably build a shrine to her. Feeding into his obsession more.
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