In Larry Crowne, starring, written and directed by Tom Hanks, the titular character attends a college course called ’The Art of Informal Remarks’, rounding the class up to 10 students, the minimum legally required for the class to take place. During the course of this highly educational, not-at-all-absurd course, cards bearing words like ‘Potatoes!’, ‘Interior Design!’ and – for the intellectuals – ‘George Bernard Shaw!’ are assigned randomly, and students use them as inspiration for a charming two minute speech.
It’s not just that so many details of this film aren’t plausible – the fact that Larry (Hanks) is fired from his job in a U-Mart so that he can go to college, instead of being asked to take a night course; that when he’s so broke that he defaults on his house loan he buys a scooter as well as, not instead of, his giant SUV; and that a college education now apparently consists of two classes. It’s not even that there isn’t a single funny moment in the film. It’s that the characters are so damn unlikeable.
Hanks has played the quirky, fish-out-of-water character before brilliantly. However, Larry is such a passive non-entity that you feel nothing for him. Propelled along by a pretty but infuriating scooter-gang-member who’s “endearingly carefree” because she constantly breaks other people’s possessions (Taraji P.Henson) and a cynical alcoholic who can neither teach nor communicate on any human level (Julia Roberts), you don’t want Larry to find love, but a backbone and a personality.
And you want Tom Hanks to find a class called ‘The Art of Knowing Your Own Limitations.’