Just films & That is a podcast that celebrates underrated and underseen films. In this Valentine’s Day special, we take a look at Crazy Stupid Love. Josh reckons this one might be a bit underrated. You can listen to the full episode now, wherever you get your podcasts.
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00:00 "25 years of marriage and you have nothing to say?"
00:03 "I'll just say it. I slept with someone."
00:05 "If you keep talking I'm going to get out of the car."
00:07 "I think the fact that I did it, it just shows how broken we are."
00:10 "I get it."
00:11 "How much, how much, really, oh my god!"
00:13 "Kel!"
00:14 Crazy Stupid Love is a rom-com from 2011. It essentially follows a few characters as
00:19 they try to navigate the complicated world of complicated relationships. You've got a
00:24 middle-aged couple who are going through a divorce and then a younger couple who are
00:27 facing their own challenges and they're our main characters. So Josh, you picked this
00:31 one. So tell us a bit about why you picked it.
00:33 Yeah, so I picked this one because it was Valentine's week and I wanted a film that
00:37 sort of fit that brief and at the time of recording over on IMDb it gets 7.4 out of
00:42 10 on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience give it 78% and the critics give it 79% which averages
00:47 out to 77 or 7.7 out of 10 if you like. I think that's a little bit underrated. So,
00:53 had you seen this before?
00:56 I had seen it but I couldn't really remember it. So going into this it was a bit like watching
01:00 it for the first time. But I really, really enjoyed it. I had so much fun while I was
01:04 watching this. It's romantic and it's funny. What more could you possibly want from a rom-com?
01:09 And it does the two things so well. There are some really wonderfully romantic and tender
01:14 and intimate moments in this between our characters. Our two middle-aged characters have been together
01:19 for about 25 years and they've got three kids and you really feel the depth of their relationship.
01:25 And the film does such a good job at taking you along this journey with them as they try
01:28 to navigate their way through divorce and the real emotional impact that that can have
01:33 on people.
01:34 It does good things with the genre as well. So not only is it well balanced but it feels
01:38 good which is what you want from a rom-com. But also it does things like subvert audience
01:41 expectations. So you have that ugly duckling type story but with a bloke which you don't
01:46 normally see. You normally think of things like she's all that and stuff like that.
01:50 The cast are great as well. So you've got Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell, Emma Stone, Julianne
01:54 Moore as well who all work really, really well together. I mean we know Emma Stone and
01:57 Ryan Gosling work well together. Was there anything you'd change or didn't like?
02:00 So there were no major offenders for this but there were a couple of ethically ambiguous
02:05 decisions that some of our characters made that I just couldn't quite get on board with.
02:10 Things like encouraging cheating or some of Ryan Gosling's character's behaviour and some
02:15 of it wasn't really addressed and some of the characters didn't quite get their comeuppance.
02:20 And I know this is meant to be a rom-com and we're all having fun and that's great but
02:23 there was the odd thing where I was a bit cringed out by just how odd a decision that
02:28 they were. But they were really small things in the grand scheme of things. What about
02:31 you?
02:32 They sort of used Julianne Moore's character as the inciting character that leads to the
02:36 divorce and then they don't really give her a good ending. They just sort of, she's there
02:42 to serve a purpose and I think they underused Julianne Moore a little bit. So I would have
02:46 liked to have seen a better resolution for her. So based on that then, are we saying
02:50 it's appropriately rated or is it underrated?
02:53 I actually think it might be a tiny little bit underrated. It really is excellent and
02:57 like you say, it's almost the perfect rom-com and it gets the balance of those two things
03:02 spot on.
03:03 (whooshing)