The first half hour shows great promise as Emily (Julianne Moore) tells her husband Cal (Steve Carell) that she wants a divorce. Heartbroken and hopelessly lost, Cal tries to work the singles scene with help from a professional womanizer (Ryan Gosling).
There is obviously more here than meets the eye: Cal has to try to move on from the divorce while still trying to maintain a healthy relationship with his kids, namely his thirteen-year-old son (Jonah Bobo) who is struggling with his own matters of the heart in perhaps one of the creepiest subplots about a babysitter ever put to screen.
And in trying to move on, Call sleeps with a number of different women including his thirteen-year-old son's eigth grade English teacher (Marisa Tomei), who could easily be diagnosed as clinically insane. As you can imagine this doesn't go over well with the ex-wife when she finds out during parent-teacher conference.
Emily, however, was already having an affair herself with one David Lindhagen (Kevin Bacon). For reasons unbenounced to us it wasn't, or isn't, working (that part is never really cleared up by Emily). The movie obviously doesn't want you to like the guy because he split up Cal and Emily's marriage, but why then does he appear to be the nicest and most sincere guy in the movie?
Remember the professional womanizer I told you about? Well his name is Jacob and he is used to surveying the same bar and going home with a different girl every night. So we're supposed to believe that this bar has an endless supply of horny babes just waiting to score, who never seem to come back looking for Jacob?
Anyway, during a sad, routine... You know what? I can't get over it. This movie has horrible views on women; making them appear skanky, dimwitted, and ready to go home with the next cute guy they meet in a bar. I digress...
During a sad, routine round about the bar, Jacob meets Hannah (Emma Stone). Now Hannah has problems with her own relationship and just to spite her boyfriend (Josh Groban), goes home with Jacob and tries to have sex with him.
It turns out he's a pretty nice guy (who'd a guessed?) and they talk about everything under the sun, with the exception of a couple of key elements that are left out just so that the film can have its big surprise towards the end.
Writer Dan Fogelman's (Fred Claus, Cars, Bolt, and Tangled) script is lazy in its explanations or just doesn't explain things at all. e.g. "You miss a lot of work?". "I have a lot of sick days, okay?".
However, through all its problems, I cannot deny how much I laughed and cried at this movie. There is so much likeable talent on screen that it is hard to not be pulled into the story by the performances.
I liked the film more than you seemed to. It's certainly not without its problems but I was more than willing to overlook them and just enjoy the great performances.
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