Crazy, Stupid, Love on Blu-ray and DVD

Written by Jonathan Jacobs

Crazy, Stupid, Love turned out to be the romantic movie event of the summer. It should be no surprise that C,S,L has been released on Blu-ray and DVD during the holiday season to warm the hearts of those freezing from Noreasters! Whereas the soon to be released Friends with Benefits caters to pop culture addicted children, Crazy, Stupid, Love is for heartfelt adults. The former is about casual intercourse and malaise between the shallowest of people. The latter proposes a complicated love hexagon (if my calculation is correct). On the surface I would suspect that Steve Carell, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling would make for strange bedfellows, but in practice they turned out to be a finely tuned ensemble of symphonists. Read more for details about this juicy summer mayhem, I mean fall romance, romance!

Cal (Carell) is a devoted husband father, and now his beautiful wife Emily (Moore) has added another bulletpoint to his resume: CUCKOLD. In laymen's terms she has given him horns. In response to his wife's peculiar attempt at admitting to an affair with a dimwitted coworker (Kevin Bacon as David Lindhagen), Cal jumps out of their moving vehicle. Good news though; the only thing broken is his heart. Cal is mortified by the news and his heart is immediately shattered into a million pieces. The first real contemplation out of his mouth is divorce. As viewers will come to appreciate, Cal saw his future wife Emily when he was fifteen years old. He fell in love instantly and never so much as considered another woman (no highlight reel?)...until his wife slept with another man and he subsequently met a fellow carousing bachelor by the name of Jacob (no relation to a werewolf, sorry!).

In all of his misery and forlornness, Cal begins spending his days and nights at the local bars. Eventually, after muttering the name of his wife's lover, David Lindhagen, a few hundred times, Jacob randomly decides to introduce himself as a potential mentor and friend. Sure, there is a twenty year age gap between the two hombres, but Jacob is a smooth operator and a connoisseur of the ladies, while Cal is like a bull with nipples (that is vernacular agrarian speak for useless). First, they establish that Jacob is capable of bringing any woman home. He explicates his methods and routines to Cal who is like a leaky sponge, but some droplets are retained. In order to complete Cal's makeover, his bachelor's coach brings him shopping at the mall (where Borders still exists pre-liquidation), makes a now brutally insensitive Steve Jobs joke, and forces him to have a haircut that does not include bangs over his eyes and boredom written all over it. Almost instantly the transformation is complete. Cal is now a made guy...soon to be a laid guy in fact.

While directors Requa and Ficarra focus on Cal's multiple beddings, Jacob is busy cavorting with the newly single, attorney to be, Hannah (Stone). She is sweet, soulful and wildly sexy. The couple instantly falls in love. Their sex scenes are intimate, revealing, and acted without a hint of doubt. Can anyone deny there is an actress more en fuego in Hollywood than Emma Stone? Or that Gosling is not the quintessential male romance star of this century?

Meanwhile, it turns out that one of Cal's bedded but not wedded flings (Marissa Tomei as Kate) is their son Robbie's (Jonah Bobo) eight grade teacher. Oops! In her jealousy and resentment at being scorned, Kate lashes out and imperils Cal's effort to reunite with his wife. The entire movie, however convoluted and busy with adding new complications, is based on Cal's undying love for and desire to rekindle with his wife. So many obstacles come in between them, but most are as hilarious as they are godawful (in a positive way!).

***SPOILER ALERT

Suddenly, Jacob disappears from the bar scene and is incommunicado for a few weeks. While Cal is wondering what happened to his friend, he finally receives a phone call; Jacob has met the woman of his dreams. Naturally his friend is thrilled for him...until he finds out it is his daughter Hannah! Did I mention, that the directors and screenwriters decided to add to the chain of love by having the kids' babysitter Jessica (Analeigh Tipton) fall in love with Cal? But wait, there's more. Robbie is madly in love with the babysitter that fantasizes about his newly remodeled father. I shall spoil no more, go enjoy the movie.

Crazy, Stupid, Love was one of my favorite pictures of the summer. It is definitively modern but it has a sort of comedic sweetness to it. Without the comedy it would seem sleazy and raunchy, but the actors work together seamlessly. Now that Steve Carell is out of “The Office” (pun intended) perhaps he will continue to star in these delicious comedy dramas. As for Emma Stone I look forward to seeing her play Mary Jane in the new Spiderman. Kevin Bacon meanwhile, has really made a splash lately. His acting talent has not evaporated, it has grown finer with age. Julianne Moore is still the redhead of Hollywood. Ryan Gosling's movies are as up and down as a turbulent plane flight, but as an actor he is aces in my book. Finally, one of the America's Next Top Model contestants, Analeigh Tipton. Ms. Tipton is ravishingly beautiful and her acting matches her beauty. Watch C,S,L with this critic's full approval. Two hearts up.