Now the 118 minutes do tread over some roll-your-eyes/“why is this necessary?” moments. A few select punch lines - that attempt to showcase pop-cultural awareness - are also met with dead silence. Thankfully, the dialogue and directing are sharp-n-wild (slightly higher than PG-13) enough to work through them; leading to laughs derived from a cast that refused to let the entertainment levels drop. It’s almost as if everyone wanted to challenge themselves by being placed in the typical rom-com blueprint, with the idea of trying to update and/or put a different spin on the genre. Believe it or not, this risky approach paid off for once. And it’s one of those rare times that the trailer perfectly captures the tone of this story (watched it after the screening).
When Emily (Julianne Moore) tells Cal (Steve Carell) that she wants a divorce after twenty-five years of marriage, the guy who hasn’t updated his wardrobe in years, is shell-shocked. To the point that he breaks the news to his 13 year-old son Robbie (Jonah Bobo) in front of his babysitter Jessica (Analeigh Tipton) - who Robbie has a crush on. The awkward situation leaves Jessica kind of hopeful, for she has a crush of her own on Cal. Sulking Cal immediately gets out of the typical middle-class home, for the tipping point is when Emily confesses that she cheated on him with a co-worker named David Lindhagen (Kevin Bacon doing slightly more than cameo work).
Cal grabs a one-bedroom apartment and starts spending his nights at an upscale lounge bar, where the trendy lady-killer Jacob (Ryan Gosling) also frequents. It’s no secret Cal is out of place here (tennis shoes, baggy-blue jeans, etc.), and for whatever reason, the tailored-made suit wearing Jacob offers to help re-introduce Cal to bachelorhood. More specifically, how to bed a different girl every night. After the Jacob makeover/training (one of the funnier extended-sequences), Cal begins to embrace his new look. Meanwhile, his bold son Robbie is multi-tasking with bluntly trying to win the 17 year-old Jessica’s heart, and find a way to bring his parents back together, for he needs to believe that not giving up on your “soul mate” can prove fruitful.
The main focus of this tale is on Carell and Moore’s happenings during a year of separation. With that angle acting as the movie‘s backbone, the opening showcases a few more characters in the twenty-something couple Hannah (Emma Stone) and Richard (Josh Groban). Hannah’s a girl who plays it safe for the most part, except when her cocky socialite friend Liz (Liza Lapira) forces her to frequent posh clubs, in the hopes of driving a wedge between Hannah and the bland Richard. Even though there’s multiple storylines flying across the screen, directing duo Glenn Ficarra & John Requa (wrote Bad Santa, co-directed I Love You Phillip Morris) keeps this scattered telling together all the way up to the hilarious climax.
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