Larry Crowne (2011)
(On TV, August 2020) It’s interesting that Larry Crowne came and went with nearly no lasting impact – after all, it’s a Tom Hanks movie: he produced, co-wrote, directed and starred in it, clearly making this film his by any measure. It’s not a large-scale film: it revolves around a middle-aged man struggling to find meaning to his life after becoming unemployed. He can’t find a job, can’t make his house payments, and even his SUV is too expensive to run. The natural solution is to enroll to community college, make better financial choices and start riding a scooter to school. As we know, college is an opportunity to meet new people and change your life, meaning that he gets the attention of a free-spirited student and his burnt-out public speech teacher. Subplots include him using the teaching of his economics course (led by a self-absorbed professor hilariously played by George Takei) to straighten his situation and let go of the past. Larry Crowne’s biggest assets are its considerable charm and a terrific ensemble cast led by Hanks himself (in his everyman persona) and Julia Roberts as a dangerously disillusioned teacher at the end of her rope and her marriage. Gugu Mbatha-Raw is a ray of sunshine as a kind of character that could only exist in a movie, but does brighten up the entire film. Other familiar names, sometimes in very small roles, include Pam Grier, Cedric the Entertainer, Taraji P. Henson, Bryan Cranston and Rami Malek. The plot definitely has issues, and a credible argument could be made that the last thing we need is another film about a white male mid-life crisis. But Larry Crowne is almost ridiculously easy to watch – it has that immaterial “pleasure to watch” quality that simply keeps us smiling until the end. The romantic plot seems far-fetched (aren’t rebound relationships a bad thing?) and the interest that the younger characters take in the protagonist smacks of fantasy, but everyone is just so likable that it doesn’t matter much. It all amounts to a film that works preposterously well, but may not have the hook required to make a bigger impression. On a purely directorial level, Hanks meets his objectives here – there are clearly similarities with his earlier That Thing You Do! in terms of easy watchability, even though his craft may not be as apparent on a modern piece as opposed to a period one focused on music. Still, I can’t help but feel that its poor box office and general absence in film conversations means that Larry Crowne remains unfairly overlooked by everyone.