Larry Crowne

LARRY CROWNE (2011) - July 12, 2011
Oh, Tom Hanks -- why?  This was a surprisingly awful film about an easy-going guy who, after being fired from his job, decides to go back to college.  Though Tom Hanks was quite charming (as usual), he's surrounded and overwhelmed by a surfiet of insufferably quirky characters.  The movie is called Larry Crowne, and Crowne is obstensibly the protagonist of the film; yet so much time is spent with the over-stuffed supporting cast that it ultimately feels like Crowne gets the short shrift.  Certainly, so little time is given to the almost comically thin relationship between Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts that when the film ends with them getting together as if it were a traditional romcom, it just feels puzzling.  Am I supposed to care about these two people getting together?  Because the film has given me almost no reason to do so.  The two characters had a real conversation, what, twice?  And one of those times one of them is completely sloshed.  Not to mention the fact that Julia Roberts spends about 90 percent of this movie being disgruntled, making her kind of a tough character to root for.  And what was the point of giving her a sleazy husband?  There didn't seem to be any dramatic purpose for it (as opposed to her just being single), and the scenes with them going at each other were just unpleasant.  What this movie really needed was about ten less absurdly quirky supporting characters, and to focus on Tom Hanks' character and his relationship with Julia Roberts.  Oh man.  What a fiasco.  *1/2