by John Thielking
8-27-2011
This is a crazy, stupid, movie. Cal Weaver (Steve Carell) is a 40
something married man who thought he had the good life until his
wife Emily (Julianne Moore) abruptly decides that she wants a
divorce. Cal doesn't skip a beat and heads out the door to
hook up with a sleazeball womanizer named Jacob Palmer (Ryan
Gosling) who shows him the ropes of the swinging single life.
Through various twists and turns we find out that there is not just
a love triangle in Cal's family, but a whole string of people
wanting the next one higher on the social ladder, who they just
can't get. The movie is unrealistic in that it has a sappy
happy ending, whereas most divorcees in real life go their separate
ways, and the kind of attempts to hook up with "true love" portrayed
in the movie would have landed this author in jail for stalking if
he had persisted with such antics in his own case. If you truly love
the other person, you will let them go and let them be with someone
who they think is better than you. Sometimes, the most you can
say is that maybe you inspired them to do better and find someone
better than who they were with when you first showed up. ( That
would make a good romantic comedy based on a true story now that I
think about it. Loser loses true love that he never really had
but the would be partner wins the love of their life after the would
be partner's former partner is scared off in a totally neurotic way
by the loser. Woody Allen would have to produce it since there
would be so many psychologically borderline personalities
involved.) At least the high school where the kids go in this
movie doesn't appear to have a zero tollerance policy for sexual
harrassment, which may be a good thing, if you are a stalker or just
a young, mixed up kid. Two stars.
