Movie Review: Larry Crowne
Even as far romantic comedies go, Larry Crowne is offensively simplistic and throws out one dud joke after another all while resting on a sitcom plot that barely holds water thanks to Tom Hanks’ effervescent charms and a way with a heartfelt speech. Hanks is co-writer and director of this mediocre attempt to strain humor out of America’s debilitating job market crisis as the titular Larry – proud, hard-working employee for the U-Mart chain store who loses his job for never having attended college. Larry was a naval cook for 20 years and has an ideal work-ethic but the movie expects us to believe that this technicality is enough to send him packing. Hundreds of thousands in debt, crestfallen Larry happens upon a community college brochure in his neighbor’s permanent yard sale and elects to take classes in speech and economics.
Some of the sharpest comedy today comes from a similar concept in the form of the meta-sitcom Community. Joel McHale is the successful lawyer demoted back to a community college study group with Chevy Chase as the curmudgeonly older man trying to fit in with the hip kids. Everything that works on that show fails in Larry Crowne’s overly-earnest approach. I chalk the toothless script up to Hanks’ co-writer Nia Vardalos since every movie she has had a hand in (I Hate Valentine’s Day, My Life in Ruins) trades on a similar series of out-of-touch half-jokes belabored with self-loathing that sound like bad stand-up comedy (real cutting-edge stuff about margarita brain freeze and SmartPhones).
While Larry trades his gas guzzler for a responsible scooter and psyches himself up for the first day of school, his speech teacher Mercy Tainot (Julia Roberts) has lost her passion in the face of diminishing, disinterested students (she has “looked at [her] life and sees nothing but fraud”) and her creep of a husband (Bryan Cranston) is more concerned with checking out PG-rated porn than writing another successful book. Here again, the views on marriage are gratingly simplified into ideas of suffering heroine and vile cad. Haven’t we gotten to a point as movie audiences where we can handle harsh truths beyond trite battle of the sexes rehashes? As Mrs. Tainot, Roberts comes off as brittle and privileged, thus making it difficult to care if she ditches the louse she’s with.
In Speech #217, Larry befriends the vivacious Talia (British TV star Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and is accepted into her gang of motor scooter riders which leads to some cute rivalry between the old square and Talia’s boyfriend Dell (Wilmer Valderrama). She gives Larry the metrosexual hair and wardrobe treatment – including a demeaning gag with Hanks in his tighty-whiteys – and cleans up his apartment (why is the place a mess when he was so fastidious at U-Mart?). Renamed “Lance Corona” by his new gang, Larry dives into his studies with gusto and (surprise!) reawakens Mrs. Tainot to the joys of her profession and the possibilities of romance.
Thank goodness for the inspired casting of George Takei as economics professor Dr. Matsutani – his stentorian authority (“master my course pack and you will take over the world!”) enlivens the weak material. Noted Star Trek fan Hanks must have had a fantastic time directing an idol and it shows.
It is a true disappointment to see Hanks return to directing fifteen years after his breezy, touching tribute to early sixties rock and roll That Thing You Do! with this uninspired waste of A-level talent. The star’s vanilla optimism has always been one of his major attributes, but with the hokey Larry Crowne he comes on like a Christian Rock ballad and makes one long for the manic energy that worked so well in classics like The Burbs and Big.
Gregory Fichter
Latest posts by Gregory Fichter (see all)
- Bela Lugosi’s Not Really Dead: A Vampire Movie Primer - November 18, 2011
- Ten Great Summer Grindhouse Movies - August 16, 2011
- The Ten Best Johnny Depp Movies - May 19, 2011
