“I saw Stupid, Crazy, Love over the weekend,” critic Lewis Beale wrote this morning in an email. “Now I understand what you were so worked up about. That scene at the middle school graduation is so terrible, so unreal, so cringe-worthy, it practically destroyed what was otherwise a nice, entertaining rom-com.
“I always wonder about scenes like that. Don’t the filmmakers understand how ridiculous they are? Are these endings imposed by the studio? Glenn Ficarra and John Requa have done good work in the past. What were they thinking?”
Wells to Beale: Agreed, but you’re being too kind by calling Stupid, Crazy, Love “a nice entertaining romcom” up until the graduation finale.
Repeating my 7.25 remarks: “One of the most revoltingly phony, profoundly sickening ‘romantic comedies’ I’ve ever seen. Nothing about it feels the least bit true or reflective of modern life as most of us (with the exception of certain filmmakers) know it. Wafer-thin characters, ludicrous sitcom plotting, outrageous fakery of all kinds, absurd over-emoting, ghastly dialogue, etc. It was so bad that I cried.”
Boxoffice.com‘s Phil Contrino says the $19.3 million that Stupid, Crazy, Love earned last weekend is “very healthy…it’ll probably end up in the $65 to $70 million range…it’s aimed at adults who are constantlyfeeling fatigued by kid movies, and this audience has lowered expectations in the summer…it got a B-plus from CinemaScore.”
Meaning that some CinemaScore respondents were less than delighted, i.e. “It’s a mildly shitty romantic comedy but at least it isn’t about CG aliens!”