These people don’t exist! Okay, I understand, it’s only a film. I know, I know, this is work of fiction. But come on! A 13-year-old boy with a firmly devoted grasp on the concept of true love? A man who at first appears only aesthetically perfect, but in the end turns out to have a heart of gold too?!
And then we have the Steve Carell entity; a mystical product of saccharine characterisation that shimmies from one romcom to the next, slowly burrowing its way into the this-is-what-happens-in-the-real-world understanding of a viewer who is existentially there. Bewitching, really. Crazy, Stupid Love is hollywood witchcraft at it’s most manipulative. Do not well up; do not grin at the screen; do not be fooled.
The characters in Carell’s latest film are not merely fiction, they’re fantasy. Sitting bemused as you watch these polished cardboard cutouts of a hollywood reality, you may wonder to yourself why you have never encountered anyone like this in your own true experiences, while probably expecting a Lord of the Rings Orc and a Star Wars Stormtrooper to burst on screen and simultaneously profess in a sweet but funny way that they are each others soul mates.
But what is there to expect? You’ve seen Carell romcoms before. Damn it, you’ve seen any romcom before. These guys know what they’re doing. Like big fuzzy bullies, they know the gags that’ll make your heart leap with contrived sentiment. They’ve watched you in your sleep. They know you’ve read that Jodi Picoult novel.
And they got me. At some point in the film, my bottom lip quivered and a tear rolled down my cheek. Formulaic feel-good films of hollywood, I hate you.
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