Larry Crowne (2011)

Despite the presence of two heavy weights, experts of the meet cute genre of romantic films in their heyday, ‘Larry Crowne’ falls short of expectations and comes across as diluted rom-com that makes ‘You’ve Got Mail’ look like a deep Shakespearean romance.

The story revolves around Larry Crowne, a middle aged man who is forced to enroll into community college after being laid off from his job in a super market owing to the lack of college education. In college, he meets an uptight teacher, Mercedes Tainot, who is battling a crumbling marriage and resents teaching her class due to their lack of interest, but slowly finds herself getting attracted to the eminently likeable old world charm of Crowne. I guess you can guess the rest.

Tom Hanks has been in several such films and knows what works. Films like this work, provided they have enough moments that make you laugh or go ‘awwww’ and have characters that are quirky and likeable.  In theory Larry and Mercedes are both at inflexion points in their lives and that could have made for more sparkling chemistry between the two.

Instead, Nia Vardalos’ screenplay pushes their characters through too many changes too soon, making you wonder, why don’ they just slow down! In addition there are characters that make you wonder about their purpose. A pretty young girl takes a lot of interest in Larry, starts calling him Lance, gets him a hair cut, makes him a part of her biker group, cleans his house, changes his wardrobe and makes her boyfriend jealous. Why? One wonders. The transitions that both Larry and Mercedes go through in order to find each other are just not convincing enough.

Tom Hanks, let’s face it is a lot older and has enough puffiness under his wonderfully expressive eyes to show that. He tries gamely to hold the film together and there are glimpses of his charm and wit that have made him one of the most critically and commercially successful actors of all time. Julia Roberts looks incredibly HOT and does a fair job of portraying the near-depressive Tainot. With an impressive chemistry, it’s a pity that both actors are not given enough material to do more with their roles.

‘Larry Crowne’ is strictly for Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts fans.