Crazy Stupid Love is one of the worst films I have ever seen in my life. Dan Fogelman is officially my least favorite screenwriter in Hollywood next to Ehren Kruger and if I ever see anything with his name on it again, I will walk out.
Like Roger Ebert said about Sour Grapes, “I can’t easily remember a film I have enjoyed less.” If you see a movie like Jack and Jill or Bucky Larson, you know what you’re getting into and you have no right to complain. But Crazy Stupid Love actually hoodwinked me into thinking it was going to be light rom-com for adults. What you get instead is the most contrived, smug, creepy, irritating, unfunny, corporate, vile piece of cinematic trash that was ever shat onto celluloid.
Firstly, it never knows whether it wants to be funny or serious, so one moment you have a character revealed as an alcoholic and then the next minute she’s jumping on top of Steve Carell like a maniac from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. You’ll have “comic” set pieces of characters behaving as NO ONE does in the real world. “Hey everyone! You’re getting a divorce but you DON’T have cancer! Let’s give him a round of applause!” Yeah, because somebody would really do or say that. Oh no, it’s getting too serious, let’s have the guy from Fargo rip apart a mini golf windmill and chase everyone around with it. Because, yeah, that makes sense, right?
Ryan Gosling. As soon as I saw this loathsome character on-screen, I wanted him to die of cancer. No, scratch that. I wanted the Ryan Gosling character from Drive to sort this prick out with his boot. The second he shows up on-screen, you know EXACTLY what his contrived arc is going to be. Why am I supposed to like him? Because he gets his shirt off? BECAUSE HE LIVES OFF HIS FATHER’S INHERITANCE SO THAT ALLOWS HIM TO COAST THROUGH LIFE WITHOUT A REAL JOB WHILE THE REST OF US STRUGGLE TO MAKE THE RENT????? And am I seriously supposed to believe that this fantasy bar contains nothing but the population of Maxim magazine, and that somehow all these women want to bang Steve Carell just because he went on a shopping spree?
THEN you have the subplot involving teenagers: 13-year-old boy jerks off to 17-year-old girl who in turn wants Steve Carell’s babies so she takes nude pictures of herself while the boy stalks her in a way that should send him off to a mental institution but no it’s supposed to be cute in the end and WAIT till you get to the graduation present, i.e. the most misjudged pay-off I’ve ever seen in a long time.
EVEN JULIANNE MOORE COULDN’T SAVE THIS MOVIE. EVEN KEVIN BACON COULDN’T SAVE THIS MOVIE. And yet somehow the knucklehead critics gave it rave reviews and told everybody to see this shallow, nauseating garbage. I hated every minute of it and everyone involved should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.
