2011.98 Minutes. Rated PG 13.
“Larry, you’re a great student. I’m not an easy A.”
Larry Crowne, played and developed by the affable Tom Hanks, presents viewers with a chance to re-fashion a life that seems to have passed by with more than a few hard knocks. Larry (Hanks) loses his job at a box company. Under water on his mortgage, he decides to enroll in classes at his local college. He takes stock of his life–his paralysis–through a series of classes that begin to turn things around. While this is not a wild feel-good story, it is paced more like a comedy with a touch of romance. It is a more realistic portrayal of the slow but enlightening route that becomes available if we look for it. As Goethe once said, “In order to be lucky, you must be looking for it.”
Larry Crowne – Universal Pictures
Larry begins his courses with particular interest in a public speaking class taught by Mercedes “Mercy” Tainot (Julia Roberts). Larry seems to have a crush on his professor and participates in class with a sense of purpose and admiration. It is clear that Larry is a good student, calling on his experience and his ability to apply lessons from college to his own trials–past experience in the Navy, and currently to philosophies of love and life. It is apparent that Mercy has lost interest in both teaching and in her husband. Despite her lack of interest in teaching, Mercedes is clearly good at what she does. Can Larry help rekindle her love and her life?
Larry enjoys socializing with his new college-aged friends. We get the impression that Larry enjoys shedding his previously difficult adult world. He abandons his SUV, navigating the streets and his new social circle via a motor scooter. Larry’s interest in his new friends is a temporary reprieve. While we get the feeling that Larry enjoys the pleasures and carefree direction of college life, we also get the feeling that he is interested in penetrating the social circle of his attractive professor. Because Larry is a student, such movement is difficult. Or is it?
When Mercy argues with her husband on a drive home from dinner, she embarks on a journey of independence. Asked to be left on the side of the road, Mercy precipitates a permanent separation from her husband. It is on the side of the road where Larry finds his teacher, inconsolable and lonely. What transpires is a romantic connection between Larry and Mercy, and a maturation that only the sophisticated among us might appreciate. Larry and Mercy are growing beyond the negative aspects that have dictated their respective lives for too long. Both are being challenged to move toward new goals and new aspirations.
There is a certain revelation that begins for Larry, who seeks pleasure in turning his once esteemed life around. His economics class emboldens him to show up at the bank to turn the mortgage (with keys) back to his bank in a “strategic foreclosure.” Larry explains to the banker that it is not personal, but part of moving on and growing up. And that is what Larry is doing. He is becoming more sophisticated, finding his voice and moving in a realm that gives him more satisfaction, and challenges him to find appreciation through hard work and the intellectual pursuits that eluded him for so long, because he was always afraid to take a chance.
Larry Crowne is not the kind of movie that people will want to seek out in a hurry or watch en masse as a classic. It’s the kind of movie that will probably be forgotten a few years from now, relegated to the annals of film-making among the student unearthing the works by their favorite actor or director. The film is evidence of Tom Hanks’ steady hand in crafting a portrayal of a reality that, despite its hard pessimism, should be viewed with every opportunity toward renewal and second chances. Think of Big, Forrest Gump, Cast Away as a few examples of the type that Hanks has created through his astute and solid acting. His character can re-cast itself as a life turned around.
While Larry Crowne is in many ways a forgettable movie, it likely won’t be forgotten any more than Cast Away, another forgettable movie. The type has been cast and the opportunity ceased. The viewer feels good about the opportunities created. The film is a reserve for a rainy day. I liked it just enough to watch it. And I haven’t forgotten it since. The viewer will be rewarded with the solid footing and romance that develops between two powerful on screen personalities: Julia Roberts and Tom Hanks. The chemistry and small triumph between the two is, perhaps, unforgettable.
