CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE.

title: CRAZY, STUPID, LOVE.
rating: 2011
cast: Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Julianne Moore, Kevin Bacon
rating: *1/2

Oh what a movie trailer can hide. In this case, a side-story involving newly separated couple Steve Carell and Julianne Moore’s thirteen-year-old son, so overwritten and unrealistically wise for his age, spouting pretentious dialog that seems like narrative about lost love and infatuation. And then the movie’s buried lead, the friendship between single's bar swinger Ryan Gosling, picking up one supermodel per night, and brokenhearted Carrel, who wandered into the place and can’t stop pouting about his wife’s infidelity. The best parts you’ve seen in the trailer or commercial, Gosling making a "real man" out of Carrel, giving him advice, pickup lines and new clothes. But that damn kid, in lust with his seventeen-year-old babysitter, who has a creepy crush on Carell and… so many distractions ruin what could have been a simple comedy, overshadowing the most interesting character played by Emma Stone, the one girl who sees through Gosling’s bullshit: eventually giving him some real depth. It’s just too bad this film has too many people to shed decent light on the ones who mattered, and that the audience paid to see.