Larry Crowne is a euphemism in film form. Everywhere the film could choose a more hard-hitting path, it slinks away and hides under a rock. It’s like opening a Playboy to find a tastefully dressed Sears model.
Tom Hanks directs himself as Larry, the honorable middle-aged single man fallen on hard times. Larry Crowne begins with his dismissal from work. He’s the top employee at Costco-like chain and a veteran to boot, but the bosses don’t like his lack of education. See, now this is all wrong … you don’t get rid of your best employee during recession. You just continually fail to promote or reward his quality work until he becomes a bitter shell of his former self, failing to care whether or not his actions have meaning; then you fire him.
Naturally, Larry enrolls in the local city college, which is –apparently- what all recently fired folks do during a recession, and the War on Intensity begins. He is befriended by an extroverted co-ed Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) who makes him her pet project. Her strictly G-rated pet project. She introduces him to her biker gang. Her Vespa biker gang. And her boyfriend Dell (Wilmer Valderrama), the leader of the pack, who looks almost dangerous enough to star in West Side Story. Larry loses his house and watches his life fall apart all while not uttering a single foul word. Some ex-sailor you are – c’mon Larry, give it that old college JuCo try.
Larry’s elocution class is taught by burnout Mercedes Tainot (Julia Roberts). It’s clear that Larry is into her from the outset, but hey!, not so fast, buck-o. Ms. Tainot has PG problems of her own. For one thing, she’s an alcoholic. But not a real alcoholic; that’s only for when she shows up in a Nicolas Cage film. For another, her loser husband (Bryan Cranston, who has done a most impressive job of showing up this year) is less into paying the bills and more into porn. But not real porn, more like Victoria Secret porn, only not as racy.
Naturally, two of the most lovable actors have a very cute and fairly tame courtship with all the requisite misunderstandings and mediocre gestures. This is the only reason I rated the film what I did. I still find it very hard to dislike either Tom Hanks or Julia Roberts no matter what they do. Well, except for Eat Pray Love. Let’s not be silly; that thing was awful.
♫ Whoa-o-oh … Pretty lame ♪
Rated PG-13, 98 Minutes
D: Tom Hanks
W: Tom Hanks, Nia Vardalos
Genre: Subdued controversy
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Folks who reminisce about the good ol’ days when movies didn’t show nothin’.
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Spicemongers
