This title had turned me off for a long time, especially with the silly punctuation, which does not appear on the poster. Nonetheless, it still enjoys fairly high ratings after 14 years. I chose it last night because it was the first movie to come up on my Netflix list and promised to be rather different from what else I'd seen lately.
In an unspecified town that might be in California, Cal Weaver (Steve Carell) is taken aback when his wife of 25 years, Emily (Julianne Moore), tells him she committed adultery with coworker David (Kevin Bacon) and wants a divorce. He wallows in self-pity in bars until annoyed lothario Jacob (Ryan Gosling) offers to teach him how to attract women again. Cal becomes a successful player, but he can't stop thinking of Emily.
The film actually has quite a few focal characters. Emily tries to avoid David at the office. Cal and Emily's 13-year-old, Robbie (Jonah Bobo), wishes Cal would make more of an effort to win Emily back. Robbie also expresses, to everyone but his parents, a major crush on his 17-year-old sitter, Jessica (Lio Tipton), who has a more private crush on Cal. (Joey King plays another child in the Weaver family, but she doesn't affect the plot.) And Hannah (Emma Stone) is rare in that she initially takes no interest in Jacob, but as she has trouble finding satisfaction elsewhere...
Things get pretty erotic for PG-13. I'm glad it didn't go R, because I was already feeling a little icky, what with the teens and the lounge lizard act, which probably wouldn't work on many women in RL. We also get moderate if repetitive swearing, plus some bloodless violence.
At 118 minutes, the picture feels a tad overstuffed. Heck, the arguable climax arrives about 30 minutes before the end. I can think of whole scenes that could have been cut without much loss. And while the plot manages a few surprises, partly in what it omits (e.g., Cal turns down help in backing up a truck and doesn't crash), it can't help reverting to formula.
The best aspect to my mind is in the eventually apparent morality. As you probably already guessed, Cal and Emily do reconcile if not remarry. Jessica does not make out with Cal or Robbie, tho the latter has a chance in the future. Even Jacob finally settles down. It's not a perfect resolution, but it could have been much worse.
CSL was not made for me. I never found it all that funny, and the heartwarming goes only so far. But it was a worthy way to mix up my viewings and learn or remind myself what some famous actors used to do.
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