'Larry Crowne' Film Review

Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts team up for Larry Crowne, a romantic comedy about a man who's a cross between Forrest Gump, Rain Man, and a time traveler from the 1950s and who, for some unexplainable reason, falls in love with an alcoholic college professor stuck in a loveless marriage. Two popular Oscar winners combining their talents is sure to draw in audiences, it's just a shame the product their selling to ticket buyers isn't worthy of having their names attached. While there are three genuinely fun characters to follow, the two main characters - played by Hanks and Roberts - are totally lacking in believability. In fact, I'd go as far as to say had it not been for the fact Hanks and Roberts are playing the two key roles, the audience would quickly be turned off by the onscreen silliness and disengage completely from the film.

The main problem with Larry Crowne is that Hanks and his co-writer Nia Vardalos (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) have taken a promising premise and forced it into the confines of a generic romantic comedy template. College life, as depicted in Larry Crowne, is all bright and shiny, with complete strangers immediately becoming BFFs who clean each other's home and give each other haircuts just hours after they've met. It's fake situations like this that make Larry Crowne so difficult to swallow, even in the realm of romantic comedies. In Larry Crowne's squeaky clean pretend world, even the idea of losing your house to foreclosure is a happy event. Larry Crowne operates in a world totally outside of reality, and using the set-up of a suddenly jobless man feels like a cheat when the consequences of the situation are so frivolous.

The Story

Hanks plays Larry Crowne, a U-Mart employee who takes great pride in his work. He's punctual, friendly and upbeat, and has more than half a dozen Employee of the Month awards to his credit. Called into the lunchroom one day to receive what he believes is yet another EOTM certificate, a human resources manager and other bosses let him know that despite the fact he's a great employee, despite the fact he's been there for years, they're letting him go because he never went to college. Excuse me? Hanks and Vardalos, this is the best you could come up with as a reason for giving Larry Crowne the boot?

After a fruitless search for a new way to pay the bills, Larry heads back to college where, of course, he runs into an advisor who immediately steers him toward a public speaking-type of class. Because, obviously, if you lose your job, that would be the best place to start getting back on the right track in securing a job that will help you pay your bills, right? Larry gets to class a little late, angering the teacher, Mercedes (Roberts), who thought she only had 9 students rather than the requisite 10 which meant she could cancel the 8am class that she didn't want to teach anyway. Let's interject here that Mercedes' after school hours are spent drinking and arguing with her porn-surfing work-at-home husband (Bryan Cranston), so early morning hours often find her suffering from the aftereffects of alcohol consumption.

Out of the classroom, Larry immediately strikes up a friendship with a cutie in her early 20s who rides a scooter, and soon he joins up with her scooter pack. She takes him under her wing and gives him a fashion makeover (which, frankly, makes him look ridiculous but is supposed to make him look cool). So now he's got a new gang to hang with and it turns out that he's hot for teacher. Why? Because it's Julia Roberts. There's no other logical reason for his character to want to be with this bitter, personality-challenged, stand-offish educator.

Hanks and Roberts are fine actors, and between them they have 60+ years worth of experience working in feature films. Not every one of their movies has been a gem, and not every single one of their films can be held up as an example of why they're so popular with movie audiences and worthy of Oscars. Larry Crowne definitely won't be spotlighted as a bright and shining moment in either of their careers. Hanks in particular is to blame for the film's lack of authentic characters (being that he's a co-writer of the script), and Roberts doesn't help him out by playing Mercy as a one-dimensional, unappealing love interest. Plus, Hanks and Roberts have zero chemistry making any scene in which they flirt both awkward and painful to watch.

The supporting players - with the exception of Cedric the Entertainer and Taraji P Henson as Larry's lottery-winning, yard-sale holding neighbors - fare better than the leads, with three members of the supporting pack emerging as far more interesting characters than the headliners. Gugu Mbatha-Raw plays Talia, the scooter-riding, free-spirited college student who adopts Larry and guides him through his transition from an unemployed, floundering divorced man who's underwater in his mortgage to a hip, popular college student able to attract the attention of a married teacher. Mbatha-Raw's performance outshines those of her well-known cast mates, and if Hanks had shifted more of the focus to Talia, he'd have delivered to audiences a far more entertaining film. Rami Malek co-stars as one of the 10 students in Mercy's public speaking course, a Spicoli-ish character (minus the drugs) who's far more interesting and fleshed-out than either Hanks' or Roberts' one-note characters. And last but not least, George Takei as a bizarre Economics professor gets the biggest laughs simply by cracking himself up.

Co-written, produced, directed by and starring Hanks, Larry Crowne is a wasted opportunity of a film. Hanks and co-writer Nia Vardalos take a timely subject matter - the loss of a job due to downsizing and the subsequent search for a new career - and go absolutely nowhere with it.

Hanks' only other excursion behind the camera as the director of a feature film was 15 years ago with the comedy That Thing You Do! which was, while not the best movie of 1996, a far more entertaining film than Larry Crowne. Larry Crowne's a weak effort from Hanks filled with artificial characters and set-ups. It may satisfy the most ardent Hanks and/or Roberts fans, but it's a marshmallow of a film - all fluff with no real content.

GRADE: C-

Larry Crowne was directed by Tom Hanks and is rated PG-13 for brief strong language and some sexual content.

Theatrical Release: July 1, 2011

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