A romantic comedy seldom takes the high road and actually tries to go against formula. This film was a refreshing take on a stereotypical genre. The directing team of Glenn Ficarra and John Requa definitely show signs of a promising future in Hollywood, especially after directing the under seen “I Love You Phillip Morris”. Let’s not forget that these two people wrote one of my favorite Christmas (more anti-Christmas) films, “Bad Santa”.
The film begins as a husband/father, Steve Carell’s character, has to come to terms that his wife(played by the beautiful Julianne Moore) wants a divorce. Heartbreak really hits Carell and when he becomes a soppy, depressed patron at a lounge, which by the way acts like the “Cheers” bar but for 20 year olds, Ryan Gosling’s smooth operator persona offers him help so that he can move on and meet new women. I was worried after seeing the previews that they would make it too much like “Hitch” but thankfully it wasn’t. Speaking of Gosling, my god that guy put on a ton of muscle! The guy has a body on par with Brad Pitt’s in “Fight Club”. I’m pretty jealous of Gosling and not from the stand point that he has an incredible body but also because he is such a talented actor. He is such a presence on screen even when he doesn’t have any dialogue. Carell, on the other hand, was good as a believable heartbroken loser. Carell actually plays a really relatable character and not just from the guy that goes through a divorce but also a person that is confused and uncertain about his future and his relationship to his loved ones.
There is truly a happy balance in the film between comedy and romance. The problem with the film comes from what the characters think they need to do in order to win the affections of another. Vanity is what I’m talking about. This film embellishes in the importance of vanity more than any I’ve ever seen. Vanity is used as the solution to help a man move on and meet new women, a girl to appeal to an older man, and a man to live out his life even though it was at the same lounge night after night. This is a problem that I couldn’t ignore because the idea of ‘love’ and ‘soulmate’(which was brought up numerous times in the film) stem from the inside of who people actually are and not how they appear physically. Of course, appearance is the first thing people notice about each other but certainly not at the level that the film was flaunting, and in almost every scene.
The writing in the film was interesting, funny and unexpected. The latter two aren’t especially prevalent in movies claiming to actually be romantic comedies. So, this film does have some great things going on for it but the answers to the characters’ problems are underdeveloped and the ending of the film took an expected turn into Cliché Town.
Overall Grade: B
No comments:
Post a Comment