FILM

USA 2011 118 mins Dir: Glenn Ficara & John Requa Starring: Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore, Emma Stone, Marisa Tomei, Kevin Bacon

After a string of duds ('Date Night', 'Dinner for Schmucks', etc), Steve Carell returns to '40 Year Old Virgin' territory for this comedy from the 'Bad Santa'/'I Love You Phillip Morris' guys, which one suspects was rather more bitter than sweet in its original conception.

Carell plays Cal, a fortysomething family man who has only ever had sex with one woman: his wife, Emily (Moore). Alas, the same boast isn't available to mid-life-crisis-afflicted Emily, as she's been boffing co-worker David Lindhagen (Bacon) on the sly. When she asks nice but boring Cal for a divorce, his world collapses and he winds up downing vodka cranberries in the corner of a smart bar and opining to anyone who'll listen: "My wife is having intercourse with someone who is not me!" Eventually, suave player Jacob (Gosling) takes pity on him. "I want to help you rediscover your manhood," he announces. "Do you have any idea where you lost it?"

The mentoring scenes include an amusing variation on the venerable 'Pretty Woman' shopping montage. Carell also teeters on the edge of unpleasantness skilfully enough. But there's something off about the film's 'The Knack'-style sexual politics, which requires women to be shallow and gullible. A surfeit of characters pad out the excessive running length, though Marisa Tomei steals it as an embittered one-night-stand. But would it surprise you to learn that Jacob is secretly unhappy and needs The One to come along and lead him away from relentless promiscuity, or that the sanctity of the family will wind up being reasserted during one of those only-in-the-movies, barf-out-loud climactic sequences where the characters hijack a public event for their self-indulgent declarations? (Robin Askew)

Website http://crazystupidlove.warnerbros.com/index.html

Opens September 23

Copyright Robin Askew 2011