Tom Hanks is a good old-fashioned American square. There’s nothing freaky or hip about him, on screen or off. But, unlike the rabid, God-fearing, gay-bashing Tea Party square, Hanks is a liberal square, sweet, decent and lovable. And this, his second film as a director, which he co-wrote, is a touch square, too. Hanks plays Larry Crowne, an ordinary guy who has tried to live a decent life and do the right thing — but then gets fired. When we meet him, he’s a diligent and happy worker for a large supermarket called U-Mart. One day, he is unexpectedly fired, on the grounds that he never went to college, and that this disqualifies him from any future promotional opportunity. (Instead of going to college, Larry was in the navy for 20 years, though as a cook.) The firing of Larry is cruel and cold, but it’s not clear whether this is just a pretence to get rid of him. If it is, why would his company want to get rid of such a good worker?
Crippled by a large mortgage, Larry starts hunting for a job, but finds only rejection. So he starts to downsize his life. He gets rid of his expensive, gas-guzzling SUV and opts for a small scooter instead. Then he decides to go to the local community college, to increase his chances of employment and secure his future. So what course does he choose to achieve his new ambition? Information technology? Catering skills? No, he chooses Speech 217: The Art of Informal Remarks (that and an introductory course in the principles of economics).
Actually, Speech 217 should have been called The Art of Being a Bore, for we are subjected to the banal ramblings of kooky and colourful students, who discuss such vital topics of the day as Making French Toast, Pasta, Vegetables I Have Known and Countries in the World I Have Visited.
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In his economics class, Larry meets Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw). She gets him to join her gang of fellow students, who love to zoom around on their scooters. We see Larry — and his new friends — cruising to a soundtrack of heavy rock music. Hanks clearly thinks the sight of these Mild Ones on their little scooters is really cool; actually, it’s as comical as the sight of a Hell’s Angel on a bike for children.
Larry’s story then becomes one of the all-American square who undergoes a real-life makeover to make him cool. Talia takes it upon herself to redo Larry’s look. “You are way cooler than you appear,” she tells him, which is a bizarre thing to say to such a square guy. Anyway, she gets down to work and Larry becomes Lance. Then his hair is cut, his watch and glasses are changed and his furniture is rearranged. She even gets him to stop tucking in his shirts. Before long, he’s wearing a neck scarf that looks as if it was stolen from the late Quentin Crisp.
For Larry’s love interest, we have his attractive Art of Informal Talk teacher, Mercedes Tainot, played by Julia Roberts. Cynical and hungover most of the time, and with a porn-loving layabout husband (Bryan Cranston), Mercedes is also in need of a life makeover. She does a spot of downsizing herself, by dumping her husband. Unfortunately for Roberts, her performance as a boozy, burnt-out teacher comes in the wake of Cameron Diaz playing a similar character in Bad Teacher, and doing it far better.
Larry gets a crush on the teacher, and teacher gets — eventually — a crush on the new cool Larry. Their romance seems to be based on nothing except the needs of the plot. One night, she gets drunk and ends up kissing Larry — but it’s one of the oddest screen kisses you’ll ever see. There’s no sign of lips touching lips. Instead, we get a mashing of heads shot from the back.
Larry Crowne sets out to address what is now a common theme of contemporary American cinema: American life during tough economic times. Hanks wants to show how an ordinary guy handles the devastation of losing his job, but his film is too timid, too soft and sweet for the harsh realities or gritty truths. It avoids connecting Crowne’s situation with the hardships faced by his fellow Americans; instead, we get an endless parade of colourful comic characters who have no interest in what is going on in the world.
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As a result, the dramatic potential of the story is diluted. The film has nothing to offer other than the facile message that if you lose your job, just look on the bright side — you can always reinvent your life. Which may explain why Hanks’s Larry never seems a real person. For starters, I’ve rarely seen such poor hair continuity on a star. One minute his hair is dead black, the next far lighter, with streaks of grey. He is clearly wearing too much foundation as well. And his performance has no depth — he rarely probes beyond the sweet and pleasant surface of his character. The one exception is when he responds to being fired with that wounded look of incomprehension he does so well: the crumpled mouth, the bright eyes reduced to two slits of sadness. For the rest of the film, though, there’s no display of real emotion. He’s meant to be an ordinary guy, but he doesn’t articulate the anger and frustration an ordinary man would feel.