Larry Crowne Movie Blurb by Shale July 2, 2011 This is a pleasant romantic comedy that deviates a little from the usual formula by having middle aged, more experienced protagonists. Tom Hanks is in the titular role of Larry, one of those orderly, conscientious people who don't just pass by trash on the parking lot or in the hall but picks it up and puts it in the trash can. He works at a large chain store called U-Mart and instead of getting another employee of the month award when he is called in to see the managers, he gets canned. Some BS (bureaucratic stupidity) about not having a college education so he can't advance, therefore must be let go. So, Larry in his free time takes some college courses in public speaking and economics. His speech class professor is Mercedes (Julia Roberts) who drinks a lot and is in an unhappy marriage with a loser who is fixated on big breasts that she doesn't have. His SUV is sucking down the gas he can no longer afford so he gets a scooter and meets Talia (Gugu Mbatha Raw) a fellow student in the scooter parking who gets involved in taking over his life. Larry goes thru many changes, which a lot of people are going thru right now. He can't afford to make payments on a house that is not worth it, so in his econ course he figures out to let it get foreclosed and sell off a lot of his furniture and move to a small apartment. He falls back on experience he got in the Navy (the reason he never went to college) and lands a different job. Oh, and somehow along with all these other subplots on the side, he manages to impress the prof that he too has been falling for. It was a nice relaxing movie; the audience much older than those next door in Transformers, which will take the box office receipts this long weekend. I would recommend it for those who like character studies played by a couple of actors who can pull it off. And it is uplifting seeing real events of our time being surmounted by regular guys.
TY Shale, I was going to skip this one but your review has changed my mind. I'll go watch it this afternoon.
