Crazy, Stupid, Love.

So I had wanted to see this movie ever since seeing the million plus billboards around the city for the last month or so. Not to mention the dream team of cast members. Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, Marisa Tomei, Julianne Moore, and Steve Carell? Yes, please. The movie opened back on July 29th and has raked in about $33 million. From the same writer of the extremely cute kids' flicks Tangled and Bolt, this movie promised to be a dramedy for (almost) all ages. I was more than happy I made time to go see this and on a side note, I saw it at the same outdoor mall that is featured in several scenes of the movie.

The movie turned out to be a really great dramedy with an emphasis on the 'medy'. The plot and characters were believable, yet interesting and wildly entertaining.

The film follows several different interconnected characters through love's triumphs and trials and obviously the crazy stupidness we oftentimes find ourselves in. The plot did a really good job of having a (believable) direction with the story while incorporating realistic, although convenient, connections with the other characters. These kind of stories must be written in a such a way to avoid the superficiality of other movies which attempt to connect characters through contrived ways, think Valentine's Day. Instead of a jumble of different characters and scenes, this felt like a story and it was. The dialogue was smart and rather witty. And although this was a romantic comedy at it's core, it was based in reality. I loved how the movie was self-aware and took jabs at itself as when Steve Carell's finds himself outside in the pouring rain after hitting rock bottom and utters 'what a cliche'. I love a movie that realizes when it uses cliches and I was definitely in love by this point in the story.

The characters were unique and very believable although all of them seemed to be quite good-hearted in the end. Yes, the ending was a little too nicely wrapped up but this is a movie after all.

Marisa Tomei was priceless. At first it looked as though she was reprising her role from the aweome movie Cyrus, but then quickly that thought was soon forgotten when this character went way off the radar. She can do comedy and drama with the best of them.

Ryan Gosling made it worth it in his three piece suites and topless scenes. His charm oozed off the screen in his scenes and was the perfect counter part to Emma Stone's character. You couldn't even begin to hate him for his womanizing ways.

Emma Stone was as great as I've ever seen her. She's always so consistent and always plays her roles with extreme genuine-ness (that's totally a word). The 'bedroom' scene between her and Ryan was my most favorite in the entire movie.

Julianne Moore was stellar in her role. Much like her performance in Chloe but with humor this time.

Steve Carell somehow sprinkled his quite realistic and dramatic performance with bits of comedy here and there without feeling like comic relief. In fact, nothing in this movie felt like comic relief.

Oh, Kevin Bacon was in the movie too.

The soundtrack and cinematography was quite nice. The long rolling wide shots were really beautiful especially with the great scenery and wardrobe. Everything was framed quite beautifully in this movie.

I ended up completely loving this movie. The cast was incredible, the story was believable and amazing, and it was an almost realistic look at love in the real world. It wasn't a sappy feel-good film but it wasn't a horribly depressing one either. I know it was marketed as not being a chick flick and it's not really, sorta. While it's not a love story dripping with sappiness, it is a movie for the closet romantics. The comedy is probably strong enough to keep the unromantic male audience at least entertained. As I am a closet romantic, although I will deny this, I loved the movie and would recommend to other mature romantics with a smart sense of humor. Yes I did just call myself smart and mature. "You're the perfect combination of sexy and cute".