Larry Crowne

On Tuesday, July 19, 2011, I went to see the movie Larry Crowne featuring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. This movie was also directed by Tom Hanks and written by Tom Hanks.

When I saw that, I was expecting a Hollywood-esque pretentious piece of crap. However, I was pleasantly surprised. I think it was a very well done movie. It won't be up for an Oscar, but it was quite good.

The story is about Larry Crowne, played by Tom Hanks, who has been a long standing employee at UMart, which is kind of like a Wal-Mart. He gets called into the employee lounge one day at work. He thought he was up for Employee of the month, but in reality, they are firing him.

We learn that there has been many other things that has happened to Larry in the past couple of years... A divorce, his children leaving him, him in a new house where the value is significantly devalued. So, after losing his job, he cannot really afford to make payments and he had to liquidate his assets. He decides that the reason that he was fired was because he had no college degree. We learn that Crowne went to the Navy right after he graduated from high school and he was there for 20 years. Then it puts him with UMart.

He goes back to school, meets a bunch of new friends, takes some interesting classes, etc. One of the classes that he takes is Communication 217, where he meets Ms. Tainot. He has an interesting first term where he learns a lot, in all of his classes.

How does this movie end? You'll have to watch it to find out. I usually don't watch Julia Roberts in films, but this one was very very entertaining and very funny. I especially enjoyed the tidbits from the perspective of educators. Since Ms. Tainot is a professor, we had some lines in there about teaching and students and it totally resonates with how I am feeling.