MoeJackson

Visit the official “Larry Crowne” website!

So let me the curmudgeonly pill who says it: Tom Hanks’s best work since Forrest Gump is his trio of voice performances in the Toy Story trilogy. Nothing else he has done since his back-to-back Oscar wins for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump approximates the sheer ubiquity or unfettered joy of his vocal portrayal of Woody the Toy Cowboy. It may seem like a strange conundrum for a man whose career stalled a bit after being crowned America’s Favorite Leading Man: none of the projects he has featured in since Saving Private Ryan have found the same level of critical or popular adoration as his streak of successes in the early 90s. You’ve Got Mail, The Terminal, Ladykillers, Charlie Wilson’s War, Catch Me If You Can, The Green Mile, and even Apollo 13 provided Hanks with the kind of star vehicles one would expect to fully exploit his wattage as a marquee star . . . but they are remembered today primarily for the potency of story or, frankly, Hanks’s attempts to break away from his nice-guy image.

Which is why one watches Larry Crowne with a sizeable dose of resignation. Hanks is back directing his second feature starring himself and America’s Sweetheart Julia Roberts in a film so tepid and predictable (and, at times, outright dull) that you have to wonder what Hanks wanted to achieve in signing up for triple duty (he co-wrote the screenplay with Nia Vardalos) for the season’s most disappointing cinematic offering.

Some will say, oh the film is relevant because it deals with unemployment and the idea of existential reinvention and rediscovery in middle age . . . but it only barely knocks on that door before deciding that it would rather unravel at the corner of Cliche and Boiler Plate smack dab in the center of Yawn City. Don’t believe me? Try this synopsis:

Hanks plays Larry Crowne, an affable everyman who has spent the better part of his professional life working at a discount warehouse where he was employee of the month but suddenly finds his services unwanted. So what does he do? He sells his car, buys a scooter, and goes back to college to study public speaking. His professor is a bitterly married woman (Roberts) named Mercedes Tainot. Crowne quickly becomes her favorite student, finds ways to make her realize that she should really be with him, and . . . well, you know the rest.

It’s not that Larry Crowne is a bad film: indeed, far from it. But it’s just so gosh-darned nice and pleasing and simple and goes about exactly as you expect it to that when you come out of the theater you might (if you’re like me) wonder if you actually saw anything at all. The film plays as a montage of ’90s romantic comedy cliches, so much so that you will recall the Tom Hanks-Julia Roberts-Meg Ryan-Drew Barrymore films of yore before you remember anything about Larry Crowne. And cynical critic though I am, I doubt that was their original intent.