Glass Half-Full
Larry Crowne (Universal, 7.1) is a mild-mannered, lightweight, reality-skirting, cruise-along feel-good movie about a mild-mannered, trying-to-always-feel-good nice guy in his early 50s (Tom Hanks) who loses his job at Walmart…UMart, I mean, and has to find ways to live within new economic limits without getting angry or depressed or turning to drink or doing anything unattractive or unlikable, which, as we all know, is way outside Hanks’ wheelhouse.
So Mr. Crowne buys a scooter and decides to take some classes at a small community college and kinda gets going with a couple of women in a very mild sense, one a fellow student (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and the other his public-speaking teacher (Julia Roberts), and starts to wear darker, cooler-looking threads and gets a nice hip haircut and regrettably sells his home and generally avoids anything that even remotely resembles that gnarly little bugger called “drama.”
Larry Crowne, in short, is about butter not melting in anyone’s mouth. Not in Hanks’, Roberts’ or Mbataha-Raw’s mouth…well, okay, maybe in Bryan Cranston‘s mouth because he’s playing another bothered guy (i.e, Roberts’ no-account husband) who has, in this instance, alcohol and big-boob issues. Otherwise the concept of butter melting under any circumstance is never considered in this thing, and I mean not even as a theory.
Larry Crowne is about being open and good-natured and saying “sure, I’ll try it” and “why not?’ and “today is the first day of the rest of my life” and all that. It almost gets there from time to time, but most of us go to a film like this expecting to absorb a kind of Jerry Maguire-like vibe, and this movie doesn’t want to know about even trying to be a Jerry Maguire for 45-and-olders. It doesn’t begin to compete with the emotionality of that 1996 Cameron Crowe film.
Larry Crowne is also self-portraiture. It’s a portrait of a moneyed, honeyed LA culture that doesn’t let anything in that’s bad or difficult or threatening. It’s about the mellow, gentle, agreeable, Playtoney, positive-minded liberal-affluent membrane that Hanks, the film’s star/director/co-writer, and Nia Vardolos, his co-writer, live in along with Hanks’ wife Rita Wilson and his various producers and enablers and all the others who helped Hanks make this little mind-fable flick.
I didn’t believe for a millisecond that in real life a woman as young and beautiful as Gugu Mbatha-Raw — easily the film’s biggest ray of sunlight — would even flirt with a nice schlub like Larry Crowne, an ex-Navy lifer who toiled as a cook for 20 years before getting hired by UMart. Women this hot never go to community colleges and buzz around on scooters with hot-headed Latino boyfriends (Wilmer Valderrama). They roll with the highest level of players — rich guys and artists and photographers and producers and artists and politicians. Mbatha-Raw’s character pays attention to Larry Crowne because Hanks hired her to do this — end of story.
I’ve seen mild-mannered French movies like this. A middle-aged guy suffers a downturn of some kind, and then quietly rebounds and starts putting it all back together and keeps his sense of humor and even gets lucky with a pretty girl or two. It would probably feel a little more charming if it had been made in France and…you know, spoken in French with English subtitles and all that.
I wasn’t twitching in my seat as I watched Larry Crowne. I wasn’t convulsing with pain. I was just like….oh, okay, I get it, fine…Tom Hanks really needs to be liked and likable and that’s why this movie is the way it is.
Larry Crowne is about telling nice lies that aren’t entirely lies because they’re pleasant and friendly and nice to think about, and about showing us a world that doesn’t really exist except in Tom Hanks’ and Nia Vardalos’ head.
There isn’t a single moment in Larry Crowne, which is fundamentally about dealing with a lack of money and security, that delivers the kind of resonance contained in this lyric from Randy Newman‘s “It’s Money That I Love”:
“They say that money / Can’t buy love in this world / But it’ll get you a half-pound of cocaine / And a sixteen-year old girl / And a great big long limousine / On a hot September night / Now that may not be love / But it is all right.”
Not very likable, but obviously reflective of the world out there and the way people really are.
Tom Hanks is living proof that money and fame suck the funny out of you. What a fucking boor he’s become. Dude oozes smarm. He’s like a puddle of margarine.
I hate to be the guy that chimes in to just point this out, but since I really have nothing to say — which sounds kinda like this flick’s problem, in a nutshell — or no reason to further the conversation on anything Larry Crowne-related, I’ll just mention that Jerry Maguire was released in ’96.
It looks mildly interesting, but I won’t go out of my way to see it.
I only mention that because that was the Christmas I lost my ass virginity to a queer midget.
(Not true at all, actually, but it somehow seemed like a very appropriate thing — in a MilkMan-meets-Howard Stern kinda way — to say).
Back in 96 I was having erectile dysfunction issues, which is one of the reason my girlfriend broke up with me, although my failed Diode Laser/Back Hair adventure didn’t help. I thought that maybe seeing Jerry Maguire would inspire me to get wood, but it didn’t. But I have to admit that during the climactic Tidwell-Near-Death-TD-Catch I did feel the blood rushing in the general direction of my tenders.
Julia Roberts is a ghoul. She should, however, get an an Oscar nom soley based on the still above. For her to approximate the look of undying devotion she’s giving Hanks means she still has chops. Look at her face in that picture. Now think about what she must be thinking about while she is giving that look. I would bet anything she is thinking the exact opposite of what the look is conveying. The look says, You, mister, are a saint, and quite possibly the man I have been looking for all of my life. It says, Now that I have met you I am not lettting you go, no matter what. What Julia Roberts is thinking is, They used to cast me opposite men I wanted to fuck and now I’m stuck making googly-eyes at a man I wouldn’t give a handjob to at gunpoint.
It would probably feel a little more charming if it had been made in France and…you know, spoken in French with English subtitles and all that.
At the very least, a Depardieu/Deneuve star vehicle.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you your in-flight entertainment this Thanksgiving.
MM — As a huge admirer of your “early work” on HE, we need to see more of you around here. And not the pithy one-line comments you make while occasionally de-lurking nowadays, I’m talking about the full-on l’il twisted anecdotes you give, cf. comments #5-6.
Big fan.
Tom should start letting his son Chet Haze pick his scripts; The results would be far less vanilla.
I can’t wait to watch this at Tuesday night movie night at my nursing home.
Hanks has some interesting stuff lined up. Cloud Atlas, that Greengrass Somali pirate thing, and Bigelow’s Triple Frontier. Looks like he got the schmaltz out of his system with this one, and wants to get back on the drama horse.
The best bunch of comments since, well, awhile. (so far) Funny and truthful stuff. Good work, HE’ers.
I’ve nothing to add.
Is anybody else just bothered by the fact that the title of this movie is “Larry Crowne”? Like, that’s it? That’s your movie’s name? How many times did you doze away and bounce your head off your laptop’s keyboard just TYPING that awful thing?
“Forrest Gump” I get, but “Larry Crowne”…it’s even too boring to say to the girl at the ticket booth for god’s sake: “Larrhhhhh…OH FUCKING GOD DAMN IT – TRANSFORMERS 3D PLEASE!”.
If Larry Crowne moved to your neighborhood, the first thing you would think is, “child sexual predator.”
Larry Crowne was going to be called Harry Brown, but the Michael Caine movie got there first. So Hanks just changed some letters.
The lack of commentary from Jeff on Roberts’ presence in the film speaks volumes.
Is she as shrill and arrogant as she normally is, or does she do something different this time.
It’s hard to hate Tom Hanks, based on how he comes off in interviews, but it’s also really, really hard to like him in anything at this point. I’d almost rather watch Harrison Ford.
The feel good movie of 1995!
Butter melting? A pool of margarine? This is a movie website, not Paula Deen’s personal blog.
No one is going to see this movie. No one. Jesus. Who would want to spend 2 hours miserable with these people? But that Gunga uh Gunga chick is pretty hot you say? Wait, what? Fucking Fez plays her boyfriend? Fuck that, I’m seeing Transformers 3.
If this had Tim Allen reteaming with Sigourney Weaver, it’d be just as mediocre-looking. How about Jack Black and Joan Cusack? No tier of actors could make this premise watchable. The story is blandness incarnate — who the fuck wants a delusional vanilla comedy pretending to know about being laid off and shit working out BETTER THAN EVER. I’m with Jeff, there must be some darkness. Not FALLING DOWN psychosis, but some goddamn anger.
Gugu Mbatha-Raw is a ridiculous name. There was something to be said for the old studio system where she’d have to change her name to Georgia Rogers or some such.
P.S. every time MilkMan comes back (which is blissfully ever more often), he needs to be accompanied by Travolta’s Broken Arrow theme.
Of “Larry Crowne” the movie, with Hanks/Roberts/Wilmer, the less said the better…a dull coming-of-middle-age flick.
Cast of millionaires, dullards, phonies, players, all slumming in a pic about “average people”, UMart, com.college, with a beauty (Gugu only!!) and the beast (Hanks) riff.
Today’s “Glass Half-Full” commentary resonates personally with me-especially Jeff’s remarks about the improbability of Hanks-age guys scoring with real life beauties, money trumping love, French films, and Newman’s “It’s Money That I Love” that’s new to me.
Jeff, good work!
Question for all:
Has there ever been a film-American or foreign-where a middle-aged guy, reinventing his life, actually does fall in love with a younger, beautiful woman ( like “Larry Crowne”) and they live happily ever after?
Foreign films with this theme typically end bittersweet…the man rediscovers his youth & love, the younger woman learns life lessons, but they split at the end.
Has there ever been a “Larry Crowne” with a happy ending? (No, not THAT kind of “happy ending”!)
Remember a couple weeks ago when Nobu was the Yoga guy?
I think I was served some Gugu Mbatha-Raw last time I went out for sushi. Zing! Here all week, etc.
Big hitter, the Lama.
Long…
Eloi Wrath wrote:
Hanks has some interesting stuff lined up. Cloud Atlas, that Greengrass Somali pirate thing, and Bigelow’s Triple Frontier. Looks like he got the schmaltz out of his system with this one, and wants to get back on the drama horse.
He also has play-it-safe stuff lined up like MAJOR MATT MASON (based on the Mattel action figure from the 60s) and JUNGLE CRUISE (live-action teaming with Tim Allen).
But I’m curious as to how EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE will turn out.
Surely the most offensive thing about this movie is that Larry Crowne rides a scooter. He’s trying to move in on Jeff’s school of cool.
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I’m not sure why people are surprised, or bothered, that Hanks seems to be in comfort mode with his choices. How old is Hanks? 56 or 57? How many guys that age in your real life do you know that are really pushing the envelope, taking new chances, staying in tip top shape? Shit, if you’re over 35 just look at yourself. Hanks succeeded. He’s been a successful, respected, and ridiculously rich actor for close to 30 years now. He seems to have a good marriage and a good balance in life. What’s he supposed to do? What kinds of scripts do you think he gets sent? Most people lose their edge by the time they hit 40, if they ever had any at all.
“a mild-mannered, lightweight, reality-skirting, cruise-along feel-good movie” is an almost perfect description of That Thing You Do. This really is the feel-good movie of 1996.
And it’s neck and neck with Transformers 3 on RT. At least I know I won’t fall asleep in TF3.
Six years of studio “notes” ie “the development process” and no one noticed the beats of the story’s central romance were missing? No one noticed that the Roberts role needed to be a character not a movie star turn?
This pic needed to be made in indie world with care and finesse and common sense and then all of its very real attributes would have been in the service of a terrific film that could have succeeded.
This isn’t proof that the star system is over. It’s more proof that “middle range” films with or without movie stars not only aren’t in the studio marketing wheelhousesanymore but they aren’t in the studio production wheelhouses.
Tom Hanks needs to do something crazy. He needs to prove he has a wild side. I mean, it’s cool and all that he’s such a generous, decent person, but it leads to milquetoast offerings like this. Where’s the ANIMAL? Tom Hanks should play the villain in a superhero film. That’s what would do it, a suitably dark, showy role in a well-made superhero film. Otherwise, he’s irrelevant.
I think Hanks has said he’d be interested in a supervillain type role. I remember thinking he would have been cool casting as Norman Osborn in the first Spider-Man. That kind of role is always more interesting when you cast against type.
And am I the only one who sort of regrets Hanks’ ascension to A-list status? I think movies would have been a lot more fun if he’d been stuck in his Burbs/Dragnet phase for a few more years, cranking out high concept comedies Adam Sandler style. I really miss that guy. I miss Michael Keaton too, from that pre-Batman era when he and Hanks seemed to be fighting each other over Bill Murray’s cast-offs.
Michael Keaton was AMAZING in The Other Guys, though.
Keaton and Hanks need to do a movie together. That would be awesome. A full-blown 80′s style wise-ass comedy, ideally.
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