Larry Crowne (2011)

Tom Hanks’ Larry Crowne is one of those movies that does little wrong but even less right. It exists to be mediocre and offend no one. It goes incredibly easy on all of its characters, even the more detestable ones. Hanks always makes for an engaging lead—and his performance in this film is no exception—but why, oh, why did he decide to make the world around his character so aggressively unmemorable? His first directorial feature (That Thing You Do!) was almost as light-hearted, but at least the events within felt like they merited a movie. (Also, that song was awesome.) The plot of Larry Crowne warrants a television pilot at best, and not a particularly great one. It has all the impact of a light breeze.

Hanks plays the eponymous character; a divorced Naval veteran/store manager who loses his job in the midst of the recent recession. When he tries to hit the job market once more, he realizes that his lack of college education isn’t exactly an asset. Therefore, he attends a local community college where he makes a bunch of scooter-riding friends and takes a speech class taught by Mrs. Tainot (Julia Roberts), who is having some personal problems of her own. She’s married to Bryan Cranston, who spends much of his day at home perusing adult websites. Also, she drinks herself into oblivion and starts to believe she doesn’t really matter to any of her students. That is, of course, until Larry Crowne comes along.

As could be predicted, the film follows an obvious route to an equally obvious ending. What’s problematic is that there aren’t nearly enough lows along the way that could render the conventional climax cathartic. A movie that’s light and airy the whole way isn’t going to pack much of a punch when it gets to the happy ending. The audience might be able to connect with it if we’re ever given a good reason to sympathize. Only a few moments in the film’s first 15 minutes show Hanks in any real state of despair. After that he seems to take everything he faces with a goofy smile. The great flaw of Larry Crowne is that it keeps all emotion at arm’s length. You can sort of see what each character is thinking, but you really have to squint.

In the case of Roberts’ character, her complete transformation from Cameron Diaz in Bad Teacher to professor of the year never feels earned. She’s too frequently a grating character, and when she’s forced into the arms of Hanks it feels like Hollywood necessity instead of the natural conclusion. In fact, the two of them barely interact outside of the classroom until the film is two-thirds complete. With the exception of the whole pornography thing, the audience can’t help but think that Cranston is in the right as far as their marriage is concerned. They clearly aren’t right for each other, but at least he isn’t the one coming home angry and hankering for alcohol. He’s an idiot, but—with the exception of one ugly scene—he isn’t exactly a mean-spirited idiot.

If there’s any character transformation in this film at all, it’s the transition of Hanks from lame middle-aged guy to “hip” middle-age guy. This is all the doing of the peppy-yet-sometimes-annoying Talia, played by Gugu Mbatha-Raw. She re-organizes his house, gives him new clothes, and teaches him the ways of the younger generation. Unfortunately, the script—by Hanks and Nia Vardalos of Big Fat Greek Wedding fame—doesn’t understand youth all that well. It gets some details right, but it deals with technology—texting, the Internet, social media—in an embarrassingly clumsy way. When a character brings up “Facebook and Twitter,” they feel like bold words in a textbook.

This review has been awfully negative, but I must stress that the experience isn’t wholly unpleasant. Yet from Hanks, a great and magnetic actor who has shown he can direct, this is a frustratingly slight viewing experience. The film is at its most winning in scenes with George Takei, who plays the economics professor Dr. Matsutani. Any moment with Takei has a strange, goofy energy that was far more memorable (and funnier) than the rest of the film. It’s still relatively inconsequential, but they are the only real scenes that portray the challenges a character like Crowne would face in a collegiate environment. Unfortunately, even this storyline rushes to an unearned payoff without having Crowne face any challenges. Once the initial firing is complete, Hanks seems to think that he’s already gone hard enough on his character. The rest of the film then depicts his drawn-out, obvious, and inconsequential journey. Larry Crowne evaporates as soon as it hits the screen.

GRADE: C