Credits roll after “Crazy, Stupid, Love”. A happy, up-tempo song plays and I wonder if love lasts forever. Is there such a thing as soul mates? I stare back at the projection booth and see a tiny blurry version of the credits reflected on the dusty glass. Someone should take some Windex to it. The theater is empty. Everyone bolts for the door to return to normal lives as soon as the main action ends. I stay in my private daze, in the emotional aftermath of a good film. I don’t have a normal life to return to anyway. Why break the spell of a good movie?
Movie theaters are rooms that you are supposed to enter and exit on cue. Wander in, march out. There is no precedent for standing alone in a movie theater bathed in flickering light with your back turned to the screen, deep in thought about love.
The theater is animated by a churning computer controlled beast behind the dusty glass. Nobody actually runs the projector. It has a life of its own.
When the house lights come up in the theater will be no reason for a middle aged man to be standing alone in an empty theater. This is not how I want my meditation to end. I can’t take my eyes off the fuzzy flighty light on the dusty glass. I can’t stop thinking about soul mates and heartaches. A good film like “Crazy, Stupid, and Love.” can do this, if you let it.
I met my soul mate when I was nineteen. She was fourteen. I didn’t know it. She didn’t know. Good thing too. We didn’t see each other again for another dozen years or so. From the very second we met again, a lifetime later, we both knew that we would spend the rest of our lives together, and we did. Is there such a thing as soul mates? “Crazy, Stupid, Love.” tries to answer this question and it’s fun to watch it all unfold.
“Crazy, Stupid, Love” has moments of startling authenticity and insight. It’s a fun, well-written, enjoyable movie. “It’s Complicated” deals with a similar issues of soul mates and possibility of life-long love. Once you truly fall in love with someone, does the love ever stop? These two companion films are well written, acted, and directed. I say see both of them.
A good film always makes me want to run home, hug my kids, and tell my wife she is terrific and I love her more than anything. My daughter finished her first week at college today. A car crushed her cell phone and she lost her glasses. It all turned out well in the end. She figured it out. She will survive and thrive. Has she met her soul mate yet? Who gets to meet soul mates and who doesn’t?
The projector clicks off and the room goes black. Now what? The total darkness is comfortable. I don’t move. How long can this last? I’m contained in a flurry of thoughts. What next?
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