{"id":15365,"date":"2011-07-14T09:52:51","date_gmt":"2011-07-14T17:52:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=15365"},"modified":"2011-07-14T10:06:37","modified_gmt":"2011-07-14T18:06:37","slug":"larry-crowne-tom-hanks-2011-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=15365","title":{"rendered":"Larry Crowne (Tom Hanks, 2011): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed at Century 25, Union City, CA.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Larry Crowne<\/a><\/em> (Tom Hanks)\u00a0is a devoted team lead at the local U-Mart store, where he is casually laid off because of a lack of higher education, which\u00a0prevents him from climbing the retail chain’s management ladder.<\/p>\n

After several failed\u00a0attempts\u00a0at job hunting, Larry, who spent 20 years as a Navy\u00a0cook, decides it’s time to go back to school and get an education.<\/p>\n

He soon realizes the gas-guzzler he’s been driving, is eating away at his wallet, and the family home he once shared with his ex-wife is now too big and too expensive.<\/p>\n

Downsizing to a scooter and eventually\u00a0a small apartment, Larry is advised by\u00a0a guidance counselor at the local community college to start small, so he\u00a0enrolls in Econ 101 and Speech.<\/p>\n

Mercedes Tainot (Julia Roberts) is the speech professor\u00a0who’s\u00a0married to an unemployed “writer”\u00a0that blogs all day while intermittently surfs porn on the net.\u00a0\u00a0Her life has evolved into annoyed teacher by day, and margarita booze hag by night.<\/p>\n

While accepting the challenge to teach an 8 a.m. class with\u00a0a minimal enrollment of ten students, she is hungover but happily relieved that there are\u00a0only\u00a0nine students in attendance – until Larry enters the room.<\/p>\n

A corny love interest develops between the two, and jealousy ensues\u00a0when\u00a0Mercedes\u00a0encounters Larry with a much younger female companion, and assuming they’re together,\u00a0she proceeds to give Larry a hard time in class.<\/p>\n

There is not much spark or chemistry between Hanks and Roberts, but instead an obvious friendship, and for this reason the humor works – it’s a surprisingly funny film, sans the romance aspect.\u00a0 Downsizing and eliminating excess baggage,\u00a0in business, personal belongings, and relationships are the repetitive themes at work here.<\/p>\n

Humorous sequences abound in both classroom settings, especially the snoozer class\u00a0Econ 101, where Professor Matsutani (George Takei) confiscates cell phones and touts the prodigiousness of the textbook – written by none other than himself.<\/p>\n

Julia Roberts redeems herself of the bland character from 2010’s Eat Pray Love<\/em>,\u00a0by\u00a0alternating between characters of\u00a0embittered wife, tedious professor, and “boozilla” hound, with sequences that are spot-on funny.\u00a0 The\u00a0supporting cast of Pam Grier, Taraji P.\u00a0Henson, and Cedric the\u00a0Entertainer as friends and neighbors,\u00a0help to move the plot along, while the film’s weakest links\u00a0are the trailers, which\u00a0show the least funniest scenes with a predictable storyline.<\/p>\n

Larry Crowne<\/em>\u00a0was co-written by Tom Hanks and funny lady, Nia Vardalos of My Big Fat Greek Wedding.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy.\u00a0 Viewed at Century 25, Union City, CA. Larry Crowne (Tom Hanks)\u00a0is a devoted team lead at the local U-Mart store, where he is casually laid off because of a lack of higher education, which\u00a0prevents him from climbing the retail chain’s management ladder. After several failed\u00a0attempts\u00a0at job hunting, Larry, who spent 20 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}