Movies My Wife Makes Me Watch: Crazy Stupid Love

I have to admit that when it comes to Movies My Wife Makes Me Watch l’m a pretty lucky guy and truthfully, I haven’t been subjected to very many MMWMMW lately.  In fact, the ones I have been asked to watch have actually been pretty cool (i.e. Brides Maids and 50/50) so I was a little shocked when I recently asked my wife what movie had arrived from Netflix and the answer was Crazy Stupid Love.  “Come on,” she said, “Its got Steve Carell who you love, and that girl you dig…oh, what’s her name?  Zooey Dechanel!”  That perked me up!  “Sweet,” I thought, then replied, “Oh, ok, cool.”  (BTW: Zooey Dechanel is not in this movie – but kudos to my wife and the con she pulled getting me to watch it.)

The other little tidbit that my wife failed to mention was that the entire reason she rented this movie is because it contained the one, the only, Ryan Gosling. If you are not familiar with Ryan Gosling you must be currently serving in Afghanistan or some other far flung movie-less, testosterone-filled wasteland because he is everywhere and is completely unavoidable.

Ryan Gosling is actually a great actor but It seems my wife and every other woman in the 20-40 age range is currently smitten with him. He has officially been dubbed a “Lady Boner” on Reddit and if you can find me a woman who doesn’t think he is “grrrreat” I will give you handfulls of  gold bullion.

In fact, there are several meme websites out there such as “Hey Girl“  that take pictures from Ryan Goslings movies and repositions them to have him say funny and witty things … just for you. Or Apocalyptic Ryan Gosling,  or my personal favorite Feminist Ryan Gosling that puts positive feminist statements over pictures of Ryan Gosling.  (Which BTW, for those of you out there who sit around and wonder “What do women really want …?” I think this may be it !)

But I digress what is Crazy Stupid Love actually about? (Warning Contains Spoliers)

In nutshell CSL follows Steve Carell as Cal Weaver a mild-mannered middle-aged nice guy who’s life is pleasant, albeit in something of a rut, who is shocked when his  wife announces seemingly out of the blue that she has  cheated on him and wants a divorce.  This causes Cal to slip deeper into his middle-aged fugue, falling low enough to hit rock bottom, realizing the error of his ways cleaning himself up.   He then spends the rest of the movie fighting to win his wife back because, “She is the love of his life and always has been.”

If this sounds kinda familiar it’s because it is essentially the same role Steve Carrel plays in every movie you have ever seen him in (particularly true of his Dan from Dan in Real Life).   So, how does Mr. Gosling fit into this plot?  Well, after Cal finds out his wife is cheating he moves out and finds himself drinking in a bar where he nightly makes an ass out of himself.  Gosling is the resident bar lothario, Jacob Palmer, who has almost magical abilities to get women out of their panties; decides to take Cal under his wing and teach him the ways of picking up women. He cleans Cal up (gets him a good haircut, a suit that actually fits, and shows him the art of seduction through conversation) and eventually it works.  Cal starts picking up women right and left. Here is where the hilarity ensues.  Cal ends up sowing his oats with 9+ women including, unbeknownst-to-him, his son’s English teacher; and is on his way to becoming something of peer to Jacob, when he realizes he has forgiven his wife and is really still in love with her.

Overall the movie is “feh-to-meh-schmeh”.  The main selling point of this movie to women everywhere appears to be a shirtless airbrushed Ryan Gosling playing a bad boy where normally he is something of a misunderstood dreamer.  It’s like Ken Barbie is wearing a new outfit…a motorcycle outfit: it’s still Ken, but he is baaaaad!

I have to admit I did have one knee-slapping laugh when Palmer explains to his love interest (who happens to be be Cal’s previously unseen grown daughter Hannah (Emma Stone) …. What are the odds? 0.0.0) what his best “Romantic Move” is; his deal-clincher if-you-will.  That move?  Is brilliant!   He manages to persuade women to come back to his GQ apartment and then casually mentions the movie Dirty Dancing.  This results in him turning on the film’s soundtrack and recreating the dance move whereby “Baby” does a ballet swan dive into Patrick Swazey’s sculpted and capable arms, then lowers her tenderly into a kiss. This is in fact what every woman who was 11 years of age+ in the 80′s has always wanted.  It’s genius made me laugh my ass off!   So big props to the writer who snuck that in.  In the end Cal wins back his wife by helping out his maladjusted lovelorn son.    It works out smurfingly with Palmer finding true love with Cal’s daughter Hannah and Cal and his wife walking off into continued bliss.   Lovely.

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