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Friday March 29th 2024

Crazy, Stupid, Love | 2011

Crazy, Stupid, Love film location: Skyline Residence, Skyline Drive, Hollywood Hills
Crazy, Stupid, Love film location: Jacob’s glass-walled luxury home: Skyline Residence, Skyline Drive, Hollywood Hills | Photograph: wikimedia / Belzarch

This smart comedy, which falters by dissolving into soppy goo in the last ten minutes, is filmed around Los Angeles.

Let’s get the disappointment out of the way first. ‘Plus’, the stylish bar full of attractive single women with unfeasibly low standards, is nothing more than a figment of the Hollywood imagination. It never existed beyond the confines of Stage 19 on the Warner Bros Burbank lot (since the bar figures so much in the story, it wouldn’t have been practical to close down a high-end bar for the amount of time shooting required).

But, apart from the apartment of Cal Weaver (Steve Carell), though, everything else is real.

The restaurant of the opening scene, where Emily Weaver (Julianne Moore) unexpectedly breaks the news to husband Cal that she wants a divorce, was Pinot Bistro (which has since closed), 12969 Ventura Boulevard, at Van Noord Avenue, Studio City, in the San Fernando Valley. The area should be familiar to Steve Carell – just across the street is Bistro Garden, where the speed dating scene from The 40-Year-Old Virgin was filmed.

Staying in the Valley, the Mexican restaurant where Hannah (Emma Stone) expects a long-awaited proposal from the clueless Richard (Josh Groban) is El Torito Grill, 14433 Ventura Boulevard at the corner of Van Nuys Boulevard, Sherman Oaks, in the famous (though revamped) Sherman Oaks Galleria.

The home of Cal and Emily Weaver (Julianne Moore) is 2002 Minoru Drive, north of New York Drive, in Altadena, north of LA’s eastern neighbour, Pasadena. The rear of the house had to be slightly altered by production designer William Arnold to open up to the backyard.

Helping with a post-split makeover, Jacob (Ryan Gosling) starts by throwing away Cal’s manky old trainers at Westfield Century City Shopping Mall, 10250 Santa Monica Boulevard, Century City southwest of Beverly Hills.

Then it’s off to Beverly Hills itself for Cal to get a perky new hairstyle, at Cristophe Salon, 348 North Beverly Drive.

Although there is a branch in Beverly Hills, it’s back to the Valley and Equinox Fitness, 21530 Oxnard Street, Woodland Hills, to find the sports club where Jacob takes Cal to work out.

A little to the east toward South Valley, Cal and Emily almost reconcile when they attend a parent teacher meeting at ‘Gregory Heights Middle School’, which is Taft High School, 5461 Winnetka Avenue south of Ventura Boulevard. Taft also became 'West Dale High' in The Brady Bunch Movie and provided the interior of ‘Midtown Science High School’ in Marc Webb’s The Amazing Spider-Man. The object of their son Robbie’s affection, Jessica, the babysitter, attends school quite a bit further east, at Ulysses S Grant High School, 13000 Oxnard Street in Valley Glen.

Jacob’s predictably enviable glass-walled house, where he reveals a body that just has to have been photoshopped, is in the Hollywood Hills. Designed by Belzberg Architects in 2007, the $6 million luxury pad is the Skyline Residence, 8520 Skyline Drive, overhanging the edge of a hillside at the dead end of Skyline Drive, near Laurel Canyon.  And we don’t even get to see its outdoor cinema screen.

Sadly, the film goes all mawkish as Cal interrupts his son’s disillusioned speech in the climactic graduation ceremony at Gaspar De Portola Middle School, 18720 Linnet Street, Tarzana.

Tarzana? Yes, the area – south of South Valley – is named after Edgar Rice Burroughs’ loinclothed apeman. It stands on the site of the Tarzana Ranch, once owned by the writer.