Stuck in Love (2012)

July 3, 2016 9:43 AM

An acclaimed writer (Greg Kinnear), his ex-wife (Jennifer Connelly), and their teenage children (Lily Collins and Nat Wolff) come to terms with the complexities of love in all its forms over the course of one tumultuous year. (Trailer)
posted by filthy light thief (3 comments total)

Although “Stuck in Love” is an indie film, it hews slavishly to Hollywood formulas right down to its comfy Thanksgiving Day ending. It’s all so easy, isn’t it?

- Stephen Holden, New York Times

I saw this movie on Netflix last night, and I'll be honest - I'm making this post to warn others. While it currently has a 7.3/10 on IMDb, that drops to 58% on Rotten Tomatoes and 49% on MetaCritic. This is a sad boy movie, in that the three main males are all sad sacks who [SPOILER] each get the girl in the end. The father, played by Greg Kinnear, pines for his wife who divorced him 3 to 4 years ago, to the point where he creeps around in the bushes around her house to watch her argue, then have sex with her current husband (as seen in the trailer). His son, played by Nat Wolff, pines for a girl at school, who is currently dating some other guy, while his "promiscuous" sister is stalked, I mean admired from a far, by a nice boy in her class.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:50 AM on July 3, 2016

Ouch, that trailer!

Father: your sister is a great writer and a brave person.

Son: Nah, she's just a slut.

Father: You're probably right, son.
posted by lunasol at 9:56 AM on July 3, 2016

And she hates Stephen King! Who hates Stephen King? In a movie with a Stephen King voice cameo?

Plus, there's the soundtrack: Home by Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros - a song so upbeat and fitting for the movie they play it twice; Between the Bars by Elliott Smith, You Are Your Mother's Child by Conor Oberst AND The Calendar Hung Itself by Bright Eyes, to really cement the Sad Boy Movie vibe.
posted by filthy light thief at 11:37 AM on July 3, 2016