Crazy Stupid Love

Impressions before seeing it
I'm a little cautious about romantic comedies, because unless they're done in a way that is not cliched and predictable, I will hate them. But I'd heard good things about this one and really liked the cast, so I wanted to see it.

How was it?
I watched Crazy Stupid Love right after A Little Help, and I thought I would like Help more, but the reverse ended up being true. This movie is a full 2 hours long where most are around 1.5, but I didn't feel that it dragged at any point because the characters had chemistry and charm, and I cared about all of them, which I think is more important in a rom-com than any other genre, because if you don't care about the characters then you don't care about their relationships either.

There are a lot of really fun scenes afoot, especially the ones where Jacob (Gosling) teaches Cal (Carell) how to be more confident and pick up women (but not how to date them), and a climactic scene where everything explodes in conflict, although that scene - in my opinion - was simultaneously also slightly problematic in terms of believability, but to avoid spoilers I'll just leave it at that. They pulled out some interesting surprise plot twists, too, which in another movie I might not have liked, but they worked to create cohesiveness here, unlike when Valentine's Day tried to do it and it felt forced for the sake of shock value. Another scene I had a problem with, and this doesn't spoil anything even though it's near the end, is when Cal's son gives a speech at his Jr. high graduation, and it didn't feel right that his graduation speech would be about love and soulmates, and then on top of that, that his dad would interrupt and come down to give his own speech and none of the teachers or principals would care that the graduation was hijacked into this random romantic tangent. It pulled me out of a movie that I was otherwise enjoying, because it felt too much like...a movie.

Recommendation
Other than those two particular scenes, I had a great time watching this one. Rom-coms have a spotty track record, but I have a system, which is basically this: if it doesn't have Julia Roberts, Renee Zellweger, Ashton Kutcher, or Mandy Moore, then you're off to a good start (nothing against them personally, I just dislike most of their career choices, in general but especially in the romance department. I think I probably like one movie from each of them, and none of those are romances). Crazy Stupid Love stars none of the above. That's all the evidence you need.