Larry Crowne
Review
by Anthony Morris
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Larry Crowne
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It's easy to forget that Tom Hanks got his start doing comedy. It's
even easier to forget that for long stretches of Larry Crowne, despite
wanting to be a warm-hearted comedy about a man starting over, a lot of
it is just a little bit odd.
Crowne (Hanks) is a twenty year
navy vet and the most helpful employee at his local department store,
which doesn't help him at all when it turns out that twenty years in
the navy doesn’t equal a college education and they fire him.
With
nothing else to do – his wife and kids having left him a while back –
he heads off to community college to get a degree so this can never
happen to him again.
Thanks to his choice of transport (a
beat-up scooter – he can't afford to drive his gas-guzzling family van)
he's quickly adopted by Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) and her quirky crew of
hipsters.
While he's getting a make-over, his public speaking
teacher, grumpy boozehound Mercedes (Julia Roberts), is suffering
through a general crisis as her porn-surfing husband reveals himself to
be a tool and her career involves teaching people like, well, Larry.
Of
course love blooms, and while this film is predictable that’s the point
with this kind of romantic comedy and this one for the most part
handles their growing connection with charm and some decent jokes.
It's
the rest of Larry Crowne that’s a bit wobbly, as Crowne’s
transformation from aged dork to cool dude is both hilariously unlikely
and slightly creepy.
It’s clearly a wish-fulfilment fantasy,
and there’s no reason why old guys should miss out in that department
at the movies, but the fantasy here doesn’t really make sense.
Talia
literally starts dressing him but there’s nothing sleazy about it
because she’s got a boyfriend, at which stage you’ve got to wonder why
she’s bothering.
The answer is, of course, that she’s another
magic pixie dream girl who exists only to make men’s dreams come true :
the problem here is Crowne’s dreams largely seem to involve dressing
like a hipster. 3 out
of 5
Larry Crowne
Australian release: 21st July, 2011
Official
Site: Larry Crowne
Cast: Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Bryan Cranston
Director: Tom Hanks
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