Finally! A romantic comedy that works!
The movie follows Cal (Steve Carell) after his wife Emily (Julianne Moore) announces that she wants a divorce. Cal doesn't put up a fight; he just leaves. Spending most nights in a trendy bar, he meets Jacob (Ryan Gosling -- hello!), who is a modern day dandy, for lack of a better term. In the entire movie, the only time we see a woman turn down Jacob's nightly offer of "let's get out of here" is when Hanna (Emma Stone) does it. So, Jacob has game. Cal wants game. Jacob decides to help Cal get game.
One makeover and lots of alcohol later, Cal has had luck with a few women from the bar and found his swagger. The problem is, it's not making him happy. He misses his wife. He wants his old life back (but he seems to like the new clothes, which is a plus) so much so that he sneaks to his old house in the middle of the night to take care of the lawn.
Things get dodgy when one of the women Cal has slept with turns out to be his 13-year-old son's English teacher. This gets revealed publicly, which is awful. Still, it's clear that Cal and Emily care for each other. Otherwise it wouldn't hurt so bad, right?
Things get romantic when Hannah comes out of the blue to accept Jacob's offer after her boyfriend says he's not sure how seriously he feels about her. Instead of jumping right in the sack like she wants, Hannah and Jacob spend the evening getting to know each other and Jacob admits that he's completely unhappy with his life.
After a few weeks of being MIA, Jacob calls Cal to say he's met a girl who's a "game-changer." Hannah takes Jacob to meet her family. Guess who her family is? That's right, Cal and Emily.
There's a whole sub-story with the 13-year-old son, Robbie, having an epic crush on his babysitter and the babysitter having an epic crush on Cal. That business was my only gripe about this movie -- even though those scenarios produced the most comedy, I didn't care.
The reason this movie works is because it doesn't portray love as this perfect thing. It's messy, and backwards, and hopeless, and sometimes awful. But it's also exciting, and beautiful, and hopeful, and sometimes awesome. It's complicated and yet so clear at the same time. It's hard work and taking a risk. It'll make you crazy and stupid, but in the end you'll see it's probably worth it.
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