“Fuck! Seriously?! Looks like you’re photoshopped!” (Hannah)

I’ve always had a soft spot for Steve Carell. It is my dream that he would start a sitcom together with Tina Fey. They could play Michael Scott and Liz Lemon. They’d share a flat. Eat cheap Spanish chips together. I would write it. I so would. It would be the most glorious fan fiction since the Harry&Draco dragonbody slashfic.

But in Crazy, stupid, love. (ugh! a period in the title! now you read that sentence all wrong!) he teams up with Julianne Moore – and it’s actually this kind of schizophrenic casting that made me go see the movie in the first place. Glad I did, by the way.

Steve Carell takes the role of Cal, a man on the edge. His wife, Emily, comes to the point in the very first scene: she wants a divorce. She slept with someone else. What ensues is Cal’s journey to rediscover his own manhood and use said hood to reconquer his own ex-wife. An easy enough set-up.

But then you have Jacob (Ryan GodlingGosling), the alpha male mentor helping Cal on his journey. Who falls in love with Hannah (Emma Stone), supplier of that wonderful quote on top of this page. And there’s Robbie, Cal’s son, who is in love with his babysitter, who is in love with Cal. And this is not love, actually (a comma! now you read that sence wrong, too! Fuck you and your lack of respect for punctuation, romantic comedies!).

I’m going to go on a limb here and say it: this movie is one of the best – if not the best – romantic comedies in a while. It’s naturalistic but funny. It’s hilarious but also tragic. It’s extremely well written, with some nice plot twists and both hilarious (“When I told you when I had to work late? I really went to go see the new Twilight movie by myself, and it was so bad”) and touching (“I’m wildly unhappy, and I’m trying to buy it, and it’s not working”) quotes.

And that schizophrenic casting? It did everything it should have. The movie theatre was filled to the brim with viewers of both sexes. A nice change for a romantic comedy! (Afterthought: might have something to do with Kevin Bacon playing the wonderful role of marriagebreaker)

In All…

This is one of these movies that will undoubtedly pass a lot of people by. It’s also one of these movies that will probably get mocked for being naive. But it’s one of those rare gems that treats romance right: like something you can fall in and out of. All couples end up being as fresh and new as they are real – and that’s a great feat for a romantic comedy.

Hm. Might be more like love, actually after all.