CSL‘s title has commas to spare, suggestive of a zaniness the film circles ’round but generally doesn’t care so much about. It’s missing a key modifier central to its impact: sad, painful, lonely.
And that is determinedly NOT a complaint. First, sure, yes: this is a really well-crafted romantic comedy, with much care and attention given to the plot structure (a few moments inflate with the giddy helium of farcical perfection, and only one or two fall deflated to the ground), to the complexity and thoughtfulness of its characters. Carell’s Cal Weaver is a man suddenly, surprisingly dislocated from his life; Julianne Moore’s wife Emily is no less surprised and confounded about her own indiscretion and where it leads the couple. The film’s packed with interesting, knotty characters–who start as the cartoonish Types of a raunchy comedy but, with a smart line, excellent direction, and pitch-perfect performances, attain a gravity that heightens both the comedy and the compassion.
I haven’t a lot to say. It does occasionally enthusiastically embrace convention, and there’s (as with much farce) the occasional strained suturing of plot strands. (There are also, though, some genuine surprises and delights.)
But I wanted to throw out to Brunsy, in particular, a question about its comic force. Where so much comedy derives from roots in rage- and shame-inflected desire, Crazy is resolutely concerned with sadness. The characters collide–and occasionally fight–but even these conflicts are inflected by a compassionate attention to the pain motivating them. What makes the film more than just a reasonably-smart comic romance is this deep wellspring of hurt — and I have been trying to think if there was another comic actor who could do this as well as Carell, or a film so attuned to same, particularly in this era of the never-wanna-grow-up character-driven comedy.
Oh: and the film beautifully reveals–in a couple of key couples–how vital making one another laugh is to desire. . . . I have seen a lot of films where verbal wit reveals attraction and desire, but usually it’s almost competition. There aren’t many films where two possible (or actual) partners so intently focus on laughing with one another; one of this film’s great moments is a long, well-edited montage of a conversation–a promised sexual fling turning, instead, into a revelatory sequence of people laughing with one another.
You liked this a lot more than I did (and I liked it). Whenever Gosling and Stone are on the screen, the film gave off some genuine sizzle (and that scene you refer to above, I think, is the two of them at Gosling’s house – the best sequence in the film). But I do like your point about the pain which fuels the comedy (still, compare this to Broadcast News, which does similar work, or even Bridesmaids, which is far superior, and you really have to admit CSL is half-baked at best). Sometimes the film grew too maudlin and sentimental (mostly with Carell), and machinations of the plot were strained on more than one occasion (the Shakespearean-styled reveal, where all the plot strands collide into one another, was particularly strained . . . albeit humorous). Poor Marisa Tomei . . . she really deserves better. And, please, do I have to suffer through another cute teenager who is little more than a puppet for adult-sized emotions and revelations (the graduation scene was painful)? The babysitter was also completely unnecessary (nearly 130 minutes for this rom-com, really?) but the actor playing her delivered a lovely, Molly Ringwald-infused performance that should springboard her to better material down the road. Still, worth a look if only to see two actors’ charm and charisma burning through the screen. Gosling and Stone are the real deal.
Reading this again, I am reminded that anger and rage, which you and others have argued persuasively are origin points for many comedies, are actually “second emotions.” We feel sadness and shame but those feelings are too close to us, so we move to anger and rage as an appropriate outlet for the more vulnerable emotions we wish to protect (protecting ourselves by displacing rage onto others or other objects). Perhaps CSL is one of the rarer comedies that burrow into those awkward, clumsy, “first emotions” of sadness and loss and regret. Still, that may suggest the film is more honest/truthful than it actually is. That being said, in addition to Gosling and Stone, I was actually moved by the developing and complicated relationship between Carell and Gosling (the film is really a bromance in disguise). Moore, looking a bit too thin for my tastes, is the odd woman out in this narrative . . . and Stone’s character lacks the sadness that fuels Carell and Gosling’s characters (unless, of course, you factor in her odd relationship with Josh Groban’s character, which is, admittedly, pathetic but tempered by Stone’s very caustic, very funny Asian-stereotype sidekick).
This is why I agree with John’s focus on Kristin Wiig’s character baking a cupcake and then eating it in Bridesmaids. That is a scene fueled by loss, sadness, pathos, embarrassment and shame (her character saves her anger and rage for other members of the ensemble) . . . but it’s also a narrative indulgence that lends the film greater emotional weight. Wiig’s character is multi-dimensional. She’s not a one-note, easily categorized cartoon . . . singing (or was she lip-syncing) a Wilson Phillips pop song.