Review: Crazy, Stupid, Love (12A) ****

It’s the catalyst for change in his flatlining life and he soon finds himself taken under the wing of Jacob, a smooth-talking, bar-hopping stud (Ryan Gosling) who gives Cal the confidence he needs to make sense of his life.

Carell has made a film career out of playing nerdy men, and Cal is no different. He’s an ordinary bloke in his forties who, somewhere along the line, lost his mojo. Wife Emily (Julianne Moore) noticed it years ago.

The difference in this latest role is that Carell combines hangdog humour with character traits many married chaps will recognise. He’s not exciting any more. He got older, safer, lost that keen edge. He became a Dad.

Crazy, Stupid, Love boasts elements of Pygmalion/Pretty Woman, Love Actually and those fast-paced Ray Cooney farces that populated British theatres in the 1970s. Carell drifts between victim and quasi-hero and often provides the foil to Gosling. And when he does make a conquest – with Marisa Tomei, who steals the show – he hands the laughs to his on-screen partner.

Like most American flicks this one wends its way to a fairly predictable conclusion. Carell, like Steve Martin, Ben Stiller and Adam Sandler, is tinkering with his image. This picture (directed by Glenn Ficara and Glenn Requa) is carefully crafted, plausible and frequently funny.