For my money Julia Roberts is the best romantic comedy actress working today. Unfortunately this can be a 2-edged sword as she can flatter to deceive by adding a touch of class to relatively modest material and make it play. She rarely gets the quality of writing in her light comedy work that she deserves. Notting Hill was perhaps the best in achieving that difficult balance between a credible relationship, however unlikely, and the comedy generated by the context within which it develops.

Larry Crowne is a likeable, if undemanding little movie as one would expect from the likeable and undemanding Tom Hanks. It is fun, has a few gentle laughs but falls short both in terms of laughter and romance and oddly enough - length. At 1hr.38 minutes it is too short to do justice to the promising premise of a very capable ex-navy divorcee, regularly ‘employee of the month’ at his Wallmart-type job who is fired because he by-passed College to join the Navy. No degree: no job. QED. Policy.

Having bought out his ex-wife’s share in the matrimonial home Larry is now heavily into negative equity. Rocking up at the local college he is persuaded to join a class in ‘Public Speaking – informal remarks’ by the hard sell pitch of the ‘Dean’ of Admissions trolling around the college foyer like a Cairo street urchin with dirty pictures to flog.

The ‘Professor’ of this curiously ad hoc, randomly irrelevant class is Mercedes Tainot (Julia Roberts)- that is 'Tayno' not 'Tieknot' etc. We suspect Mercy’s commitment to the deeper fundmamental values of education when, still drunk from the night before, she counts only 9 students in her class which has a 10 minimum registration and gleefully cancels the course; dismissing them with unconcealed satisfaction. Cue bumbling, and late, new student Larry, frustrating her dedicated devotion to seeking out the next bottle of wine and further night of oblivion.

Economising on petrol, Larry buys a second hand scooter from next door neighbour Cedric who runs a permanent car boot sale on his lawn. Cedric’s rapacious desire to make a profit is constantly undermined by his Apprentice-like hopeless negotiating style: $100? How about $98? $96 then? Come on, make it $95 - my final offer. OK it’s yours for $5.

Now trendily scooter-borne, Larry is taken under the wing of gorgeous wild child Alvarez (delicious Roxana Ortega) who is wise in the ways of the world, the lust object of every man who meets her and literally patrolled by rocker boyfriend scooter teamleader 1 Alex Qijano who with mock menace warns Larry to watch his step.

There is much promise in these characters and the big disappointment of Larry Crowne is that Hanks really doesn’t develop any of them. Roberts does a great job as a droll, drunk college professor blessed with a waste-of-space, bone idle, porn-surfing, failed-writer husband. Hanks does his likeable ‘aw-shucks’ good guy schtick without having to break sweat and we have a bit of fun with Alvarez, Cedric, and a very nice little comic turn as economics Professor Dr Matsutani by Stars Trek’s Sulu – George Takei.

I don’t know whether it was laziness or lack of aspiration that led Hanks to wrap the whole thing up in not that much over an hour but most unusually for movies nowadays, this one could have been funnier and more satisfying if it had been longer with a bit more imagination applied to the situations within which Tainot and Crowne get together.

Still, Larry Crowne is a nice bit of undemanding fun, a good little date movie even if the pretty bow and fancy box delivers only a few tasty chocolates instead of two full layers you can’t get enough of.

Meanwhile, a by now very accomplished actress with a pretty impressive range, awaits the stylish, witty, quality material that she can really get her excellent timing and pitch perfect playing into. Once the beautiful film star aura fades a bit, if she’s a mind to, I rather think there is a strong character actress lurking within our Julia. But it would be a shame if someone like Nora Efron or some of the great American TV comedy writers didn’t make the best of her before then. Hanks pretty much wastes her in this one.

See also: http://www.zettelfilmreviews.co.uk
Twitter: Zettel23

I'm wondering why you went to see this, Zettel with so many good films about. Have you seen "A Separation" for instance and "Incindies"?

I don't think I'd go and see anything with Jennifer Aniston in it. She seems frozen in time - forever the cute ditzy girl from "Friends". But she's 41 now so needs to start acting her age.

Have you seen "Bridesmaids"? Hilariously funny and well worth going to see.

I see a lot of movies Jem and sometimes I want undemanding escapism. And I am a died-in-the-wool romantic like most guys and believe that love will always conquer all: unlike the more sensible sex who know what a preposterous fiction that is.

There are films I admire but don't like; films I admire and like; good films that aren't that much fun; films that inspire and films that depress etc etc. I love romantic comedies or even, dare I say it straight romances (when I say 'straight' know I don't mean.....right?). One of my favourite films is Serendipity and I may be the only critic on earth who thinks Message In A Bottle was a very good film.

I rather agree about Jennifer Aniston with whom, if the material isn't good she makes it look worse. Unlike as I suggest - Julia Roberts who does the reverse. I am vary wary of Bridesmaids as I was persuaded against my better judgement to go and see The Hangover (1 and 2). Of course I laughed, but it's was a bit like the dirty joke the guy you hardly know tells you down the pub - you laugh but wish you hadn't. I cannot share the American passion for the humour of embarrassment (what I call the dog-humping-cuddly-toy syndrome). It's interestingly different: Men Behaving Badly made humour out of just that: but there, the underlying satire was precisely against men - their never-grow-upedness; their sad dumbstick-led lives; their total ingorance about women and grown up sex. No one would ever have thought there was anything enviable about their behaviour.

Whereas in the Hangovers and other guys-being-dicks Hollywood movies there is always a kind of undertow of - this is how all guys would like to behave if only they had the chance. No way Jose.

If I've got Bridesmaids wrong and you recommend it - it's had a good press, then why not - be happy to give it a look.

thanks for the comment

best

z

Do go and see "Bridesmaids", Zettel. I didn't see The Hangover so I have no idea what that was about. But Bridesmaids made laugh out loud. A very witty script and great characterisation. The crude bits aren't really crude at all, actually - not to my way of thinking. They had a purpose in that they showed us something about the characters or their relationships, they weren't just add ons. An excellent female ensemble - so refreshing.

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FWIW I absolutely hated "Pretty Woma". A dangerous fiction. I don't know those other two films you mention.

ok jem

i'll give it a go.

i liked PW. i guess all fiction is dangerous in one way or another - certainly the way men are protrayed in most hollywood films nowadays is certainly a fiction. not sure whether its dangerous or not. i tend to reserve dangerous for violence especially when linked to sexuality. underneath most hollywood output has always been misogynisitic i fear. add in a fair bit of misandry now creeping in and everything is screwed up. what we don't get from hollywood generally is grown relationships between men and women sexual or otherwise. you have to look to the rest of the world for that - especially france. the possiblity that women in oppressive muslim countries might begin to make some outspoken films is very exciting. and a damn sight more productive than bombs and guns etc.

z