Jeremy’s Tophunder №92: Crazy, Stupid, Love

6 min readMay 15, 2020

Let’s just get this out of the way up front.

The only word in the title of this movie with any accuracy is Stupid.

This is a stupid movie. The premise is stupid, the characters (for the most part) are stupid, the degree to which all the stories inter-weave is stupid, the point where all of the interweaving stories combine is stupid. It’s all stupid.

I love it anyway.

Sometimes I like stupid movies. I can’t help it. And I’m not apologizing for it, either.

Crazy, Stupid, Love kind of came out of nowhere. The directors, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa had only directed one movie prior to this (I Love You Phillip Morris, which was good, but nobody saw), and the writer, Dan Fogelman, was better known from animation (writing or contributing to the scripts for Cars, Cars 2, Bolt, and Tangled). It’s another one of those movies where you think to yourself “how did they put that cast together?”

Obviously, a great script attracts great talent, and this is a great script. Like, the story is ridiculous, but the dialogue is well-written, funny, heartfelt, and well, also kind of ridiculous. But in a good way, you know?

I’ve never not enjoyed Ryan Gosling. Not once. By my count, I’ve seen him in 14 movies, and he’s been great in every single one of them. Sure, some of the movies he’s in are terrible (I’m looking at you, Gangster Squad), but Gosling himself always delivers. Of the 14 movies I’ve seen him in, this -might- be my favorite Gosling performance. He was nominated for Oscars for Half Nelson and La La Land, and sure, he was definitely good in both movies, but there’s something about him in Crazy, Stupid, Love that just kills me. The scene where he overhauls Steve Carell’s wardrobe is just fantastic. There’s palpable disdain for every choice Carell makes. As someone who defines most of his male relationships by the amount we sarcastically bust each other’s balls, Gosling’s character spoke to me.

I also love Emma Stone. I’m not sure how much acting range she actually has, but when a role is in her wheelhouse, she crushes it. I would have called her the most underrated actress of her generation until she started rattling off Oscar nominations (including a win for La La Land) over the last five years. In 2011, and for a few years after, though, she was clearly overshadowed by Anne Hathaway and Jennifer Lawrence and Natalie Portman. It was around this time that Stone started to make waves as a serious actor — she actually made her acting debut in Superbad (a fun fact that still blows me away, because she’s amazing in it) and mostly stuck to comedies until 2011. I guess Crazy, Stupid, Love is still a comedy (especially her arc), but I remember this being the first movie where I thought she showed flashes of Oscar-worthy potential.

As good as Gosling and Stone were, however, they aren’t quite enough to get the movie into the Top 100. What pushes the movie over the top, for me at least, are the supporting roles. Kevin Bacon just acts like Kevin Bacon, but it was necessary to have a name actor in that role — it really sells Steve Carell’s insecurity about Julianne Moore’s infidelity and the divorce. John Carroll Lynch is great as Carell and Moore’s family friend (and father of Jessica the babysitter), and my two personal favorites are Josh Groban as Emma Stone’s doofus boyfriend at the start of the movie and Liza Lapira as her best friend. Lapira plays Liz, and probably provides the biggest laugh in the movie — Liz is at The Bar, sees Gosling, and calls Emma Stone to tell her to come by. While on the phone, Liz is approached my some random older dumpy guy, to whom she turns and goes, “In what world, honey? Please turn around. No.” Always gets a big laugh. That’s often a hallmark of movies that I love way more than I probably should and I don’t always have clear reasons for why — supporting actors and actresses that only show up in two or three scenes but absolutely crush their five minutes of screen time. If you only see a movie once, you’ll eventually forget about those moments. But when you’ve seen a movie 15 times, those small moments become your favorite parts.

If we’re being honest — the whole arc with Steve Carell’s son and the babysitter is pretty brutal. Like, the kid’s a decent actor (for being 13 at the time, at least), and Analeigh Tipton (who apparently is also a model who placed third on America’s Next Top Model in 2008 — I’m glad I didn’t already know this) was actually pretty good in her role, but of all the weird storylines, it’s somehow the least believable for me.

I’d prefer to also not go too in depth on the scene towards the end of the movie in Carell and Moore’s backyard when all the storylines finally intersect, not because I don’t want to spoil anything, but because the scene is so over-the-top ridiculous that I’d prefer to pretend that it just doesn’t exist.

However, one good thing does come out of it. The scene at the bar with Carell and Gosling that comes afterwards is probably my favorite scene in the movie. Gosling tells Carell that he used to look at people in love and think they were pathetic, and that he tried to turn Carell into a version of himself to help Carell get over his divorce, but now that he (Gosling) is in love himself, he realizes he wants to feel the way Carell feels. He closes by telling Carell that he’s a good guy, and a good father, and it’s great. It’s Gosling’s most genuine moment in a movie where he spends the first hour-plus picking up random girls and never calling them again. On top of that, it’s easily Carell’s best scene in the movie. He’s a funny, goofy guy, but when he gets serious, he can hit you like a freight train. The Carell you get in this scene is one that doesn’t show up all that often, and I wish it did more. Sure, he’s started to take on more serious roles in recent years, but most of them still have comedic tilts. This scene really stands apart. It’s that good. And then he obviously caps it off with his funniest line in the movie.

There are a few movies on my list that could possibly considered romantic comedies, but only under the most charitable definitions of the term. Most would probably either be considered comedy-dramas with a romantic sub-plot (like Forrest Gump) or movies that lean way closer to comedy than romance, even if the love story is well done (like Forgetting Sarah Marshall). Crazy, Stupid, Love is the one that fits under the “romantic comedy” umbrella most clearly. I’m normally not a big fan of rom-coms. I’m usually of the opinion that truly bad romantic comedies are the most unredeemable movies in American culture, and that even good ones usually have a pretty low ceiling. Crazy, Stupid, Love is pretty good though. There’s enough to keep me invested even when the love story(s) get boring. It’s on the bubble, but it sneaks onto the list at №92.

(For a refresher on the project, I introduced it in a Facebook Post on Day 1)

Here’s our progress on the list so far:

2. A Few Good Men

3. The Social Network

4. Dazed and Confused

6. The Fugitive

7. The Dark Knight

9. Saving Private Ryan

11. The Big Short

13. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

15. Skyfall

17. Ocean’s 11