'Larry Crowne' Movie Review

Larry Crowne (Tom Hanks) has hit tough times from a divorce to finding out that he’s no longer eligible to work at a Target-esque store U-Mart because he didn’t attend college during his time as a youth. Even though he’s a 20 year Navy veteran, his past doesn’t assist him with trying to get a new job and ends up with many unsuccessful interviews. He finally comes to terms about his predicament and ends up attending a nearby community college where he deals with a class of offbeat students, a free spirit who prefers to sell Feng Shui and assist with making Larry popular than dealing with her classes and a teacher who swallows her pain in vodka and rum to deal with her husband’s (a very thin Bryan Cranston) lack of a well-paying job and porn addiction.

This is the second film this year where we have a well-known actress portraying a teacher who’s uncaring about her class yet unlike Cameron Diaz in Bad Teacher, though one brief conversation brings up the purpose of that particular film, Julia Roberts sell her character. Just seeing her and the students might make one think of other scenarios where they’ve dealt with the same archetypes such as the timid one, the perky athlete, and the like seen on TV and other films. Some people might place the TV show Community above this film, but this film doesn’t have two Academy Award winners whose chemistry is light but handled pretty well by movie’s end. The parts of the movie that don’t work are characters who both could have been played by other actors (How did the film score with Cedric the Entertainer and Taraji P. Henseon?) and Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). Talia’s the first student Larry meets at his new school who offers him a new wardrobe, fixtures to his house and the occasional text chats in class. With her getting close to Lance (Larry’s nickname given by her), Larry is seen as competition by her boyfriend (a full bearded Wilmer Valderrama), a leader of a scooter gang which sounds as convincing as a group of toddlers on tricycles being on the same level as 40 year old men and their motorcycles. When dealing with a person like Talia, one must have the courage to keep her out of his life or risk getting in trouble (happening three-four times with his ECOM 101 teacher (George Takei).

The film is about how the world works and the unfairness of not being able to get a higher ranking job due to lack of an education. While most people have gone through most of their lives without attending college, it also throws the ‘go to college to open new possibilities in life’ message which has grown stale. While understanding that employers need to seek people who can handle the responsibilities in their appointed positions, the film also shows that people with college degrees can also end up on the short end of their careers as well. Also, the film’s a break from the breeziness of pure fantasy in a foreign land and loud, overdrawn, games of Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em Robots (not talking about Real Steel) this weekend. If you’re into romance comedies that are little in the romance department or a film depicting how unfair the world is in its modern age while being able to bring laughs to make the predicament more hilarious than a period of sadness and grief, this one fits the bill.