Crazy, Stupid, Love

A competent weaving of the same story structure seen through the eyes of two different relationships.

What starts out as one story dovetails sweetly into another, providing some minor hiccups in Audience Reception (reviews of uneven pacing or overly long running-time the results), yet in the final analysis still provides the kind of emotionally fulfilling ending one hopes to find in a modern work.

Crazy, Stupid, Love opens up with the more typical story of sad-sack Cal Weaver (Steve Carell) learning to be a man from the always-sexy Ryan Gosling (playing Jacob Palmer). Yet, it finishes up with that same sad-sack teaching the ladies man a thing or two about love. The former serves up the easy laughs, the Fun and Games moments found in the trailer with trying on outfits and chatting up the ladies. It is the latter story, however, that really offers up the heart of the matter: that no matter how hard things get, you always fight for your soulmate. The first sells the film, the second seals it in your heart.

Never easy combining two stories into the space of one, yet despite minor structural difficulties, Crazy, Stupid, Love still shines through as a delightful and touching film.