By Warren Day

Compared to the frat boy romps and comic book heroes that have deluged us in 2011, “Crazy, Stupid Love” seems like a mature comedy, even though it’s basically a story of adults acting in very immature ways. Heterosexuals can do that, you know.

It certainly has one of the better casts of the year, with Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone, Kevin Bacon, Marisa Tomei, and Josh Groban (yes, the singer). Along with a seventeen year old baby sitter (played by Analeigh Tipton) and a very horny and heartsick thirteen year old (Jonah Bobo), these actors seem to hit every demographic a marketer could want. Yet the film is really a middle-age fairy tale, and I mean no criticism when I say that. All ages need to see their romantic fantasies acted out on the big screen, where we can do crazy and stupid things and still have a happy ending … unlike real life.

Even the young adult romance in this film seems more like a middle-age version of one. What sophisticated guy in his late twenties today would take his big romantic move on a girl from a chick movie almost as old as he is?

In the audience I saw it with, this middle-age slant did not keep those under 25 from laughing; maybe they were enjoying watching adults the age of their parents act like idiots. This movie could serve as a “go-to” manual for bad heterosexual behavior; so much so that I don’t think I want my children taught by them or even to allow them to marry.

To reverse the normal phrase, this comedy has a richness of embarrassments. In the first scene, one character asks another for a divorce, and his reaction is both funny and embarrassing.  And then, for two hours, you see the characters, all of them, get involved in one painfully embarrassing moment after the other. Is it funny? Very much so, but is it fun to watch? That’s a different question and, for me at least, it has a different answer.

Humor based on embarrassing situations is a low form of comedy, since it doesn’t require a lot of wit or imagination to get a laugh. Part of the reason we laugh is because these people are doing something worse than anything we’ve done, so when an entire two hours is based on almost nothing but watching people make fools of themselves, there creeps in a kind of smugness in our reaction. We wouldn’t be laughing if this was happening to us.

What is a revelation is to see several actors step outside their comfort zone, and to do so well. Steve Carell handles his dramatic scenes just as effectively as his comedic ones. Ryan Gosling can do light comedy. Marisa Tomei can do farce. Josh Groban can act.
What is both refreshing and rare is to see the concerns of middle-age people made the focus of a comedy. That alone will cause many, both gay and straight, to embrace “Crazy, Stupid Love” as one of 2011’s more enjoyable films.