Stuck In Love 2012, All You Want To Know & Watch Movie

An acclaimed writer, his ex-wife, and their teenaged children come to terms with the complexities of love in all its forms over the course of one tumultuous year.

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Stuck In Love Reviews

A romance with wry humour and low-key drama, Stuck In Love is a clever look at multiple emotional entanglements within one family.

It’s been two years, but published writer Bill Borgens (Greg Kinnear) is still not over the break-up of his marriage to Erica (Jennifer Connelly), who has moved on and remarried. Bill’s two children are both aspiring writers: Samantha (Lily Collins) is in college and about to have her first book published, while high schooler Rusty (Nat Wolff) is big fan of Stephen King.

Bill enjoys casual sex with married neighbour Tricia (Kristen Bell) but continues to hope Erica will come back to him. Samantha is deeply hurt by her parents’ divorce and not on speaking terms with her mother, but her cynical attitude towards romance is tested when she meets classmate Louis (Logan Lerman). Meanwhile, Rusty is encouraged by his father to take more emotional risks and pursues a relationship with troubled classmate Kate (Liana Liberato).

In a compact 96 minutes, writer and director Josh Boone weaves three romances into one pleasing narrative. Stuck In Love avoids all the cliches associated with traditional romantic comedies, and instead focuses on well-rounded characters, emotional risk-taking, the healthy pursuit of sex, and perilous pathways to the pleasures of love. The agile pacing is augmented by bright dialogue and good balance between humour and poignancy.

Bill Borgens raised his two children to be writers, and Boone anchors his three protagonists in a literary milieu. Combined with a twee musical selection, Stuck In Love sometimes overreaches into excessively arty terrain. But Bill, Samantha and Rusty are likeable and authentic characters defined by pragmatic foibles, and their roller-coaster love lives swoosh past the script’s weaknesses.

Daring to venture towards unfamiliar feelings is the underlying theme unifying the three stories. After witnessing the disintegration of her parents’ marriage, Samantha has withdrawn into a hard shell, seeking only shallow sexual gratification and studiously avoiding any meaningful relationships.

Louis keeps knocking on her heart until she yields to the potential for caring. Rusty is prodded by his Dad to enrich his life experiences, and is soon throwing a deserved punch and winning the heart of the popular but troubled Kate. And Bill himself has to decide if two years is long enough to wait for Erica as he tiptoes into the world of on-line dating with help from the cheeky Tricia.

In a radiant performance Lily Collins exudes confidence and fragility as Samantha’s core beliefs are challenged. Greg Kinnear as the family head teases out the complexities of a husband coping with his own grief and a father barely keeping up with his children’s needs. The other cast members all leave an impression and grasp their moments to shine.

The resolutions lean towards over-tidy, but Stuck In Love delivers three-for-one charm.

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Stuck In Love Plot

Novelist and teacher Bill Borgens still misses Erica, who left him for the younger Martin two years ago. Instead of writing, he spies on them while ‘jogging’. His teenager Rusty has a secret crush on his classmate Kate, and his daughter Sam is a cynical college student, who prefers superficial, one-night stands to a relationship.

On Thanksgiving, Bill still sets Erica a place. Over dinner, Sam announces publication of her first novel. Bill is thrilled, as he’s raised them to be writers, but upset it’s not the one he’s helped her with. Rusty goes to a second dinner with Erica and Martin, but Sam refuses to join, citing Erica’s betrayal.

At a bar, Sam’s classmate Lou warns her about a sleaze. Despite initially being rebuffed, he persists and they go for coffee. Discussing favorite books, Sam is unnerved by their similar tastes and runs off, fearing a relationship. When Lou doesn’t come to their writing seminar, she finds him at his dying mother’s house.

Sam, seeing his vulnerability, agrees to go out with Lou. Discussing her novel, she explains that her real mother had sex with another man on the beach and she’d heard Erica coldly unconcerned if Bill saw them. While listening to Lou’s favorite song, Between the Bars by Elliott Smith, Sam begins to cry, afraid of being hurt. Lou promises he won’t hurt her, and they kiss.

Rusty reads a poem in class, which is secretly about Kate. As Bill pays his kids to write frequently in their journals he reads Rusty’s to check on his progress. When Rusty catches him, Bill says he needs to really experience life to become a better writer.

Rusty and his friend Jason go to Kate’s boyfriend Glen’s party. He inadvertently sees Kate and Glen doing cocaine, so they start to leave. When they see Glen knock Kate down, Rusty punches him and flees with Kate and Jason. As she can’t go home bruised and high, Rusty brings her to his.

As Rusty is tucking Kate into bed, she guesses his poem was about her, they kiss and begin a relationship. On Christmas Day, they have sex in his closet so it’s memorable. Rusty gives Kate a copy of his favorite novel It, and she gives him her favorite album. As she struggles with her addictions, Erica catches her rifling through her medications.

Bill has regular trysts with his married neighbor Tricia, with whom he occasionally jogs. However, he continues to mope over Erica. While Christmas shopping he runs into her and, over coffee, says he’d be a much better husband if given a second chance.

Tricia urges Bill to try online dating, helping him with his look and profile. After a somewhat successful date, he stops by Erica’s to leave his wedding ring but he peeks in her window and sees her reading his book. Enheartened, he changes his mind.

At Sam’s book-launch, Bill makes a speech about the writing process, quoting What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, his favorite book. Lou invites Erica, who is clearly uncomfortable. Bill encourages her to talk to Sam, insisting she still cares. But when Erica tries, Sam pretends not to know her when signing Erica’s copy.

Sam breaks up with Lou for inviting Erica, then gives Kate champagne—unaware of her addiction—who is eventually incapacitated after mixing drugs and alcohol. Sam’s classmate Gus takes the vulnerable Kate to his place, so the Borgens track her down. Bill and Erica barge in, finding her unconscious in his bedroom. As they load Kate into the car, Rusty sees that Kate was sexually assaulted, which leaves him in tears.

Devastated, Rusty turns to alcohol and comes home drunk almost every night. While at a convenience store with Jason he runs into Glen, who chases down and beats him. Kate writes Rusty an apology, explaining she’s in rehab as she must fix herself. She hopes that one day she could be worthy of him.

Bill, worried about Rusty, suggests he channel his pain into his writing. Rusty asks if he did the same when Erica left, prompting him to ground him. Rusty writes a story titled “I’ve Just Seen a Face” (after the Beatles song, the one he hears when thinking of Kate). Later, his favorite author Stephen King calls. Sam sent his story to him, who gets it published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

A frustrated Sam tells Bill he needs to forget about Erica. Bill then confesses he walked out on them when she was a baby for six months and Erica waited for him. He promised that if she ever left him, he’d do the same. When Lou calls Sam when his mother dies, she realizes her own mistakes and how much her mother means to her. She visits Erica and they tearfully reconcile. Sam and Lou get back together, and she helps him through his mothers’ death.

A year later, Bill has not set a place for Erica at the table for Thanksgiving. Rusty and Kate are back together, as are a less cynical Sam with Lou. As they sit down to eat Erica comes over and tearfully asks to join them. Bill is taken aback, but happy she has finally come home.

While the family celebrates, Bill again narrates from What We Talk About When We Talk About Love.

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Stuck In Love Critical Reception

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 58% based on 45 reviews. The website’s critics consensus reads: “It struggles to enliven its uneven script, but Stuck in Love boasts enough winning performances from its solid veteran cast to offer an appealing diversion for rom-com enthusiasts.” One of top critics commented, “The story, while unsurprising, is also quietly satisfying.”^[7] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 49 out of 100, based on 13 critics, indicating “mixed or average reviews”.

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