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
