Review of Like Crazy (2011) by Noemie R — 09 Aug 2014

"Like Crazy" is one of the most realistic relationship movies ever made. But that's also why it is also so hard to love.

The central couple is Anna (Felicity Jones), a Brit, and Jacob (Anton Yelchin), an American. Their meet-cute takes place in a college class - for Anna, it's love at first sight, and it doesn't take long for Jacob to fall for her either. She is studying journalism, he is studying furniture design. They spend days upon weeks together, shown in a montage that is surprisingly devoid of fakery. It isn't hard to see that this is young love that is as serious as it is ready to crash and burn.

But then, the school year ends, and Anna is going to spend the summer in the UK, since her travel Visa is due to expire. Yet Anna is so smitten that she decides to ignore the government and stay - this decision causes a butterfly effect that is so extremely maddening that it's hard to even look at Anna and not want to give her a fatherly pep talk.

She is then deported, spending months away from Jacob - Jacob, however, begins seeing Sam (Jennifer Lawrence), a beautiful young woman who gives Anna a run for her money. This sort of plot goes in a cycle: Anna and Jacob see each other for a short time, then see other people when they're apart. It isn't healthy - and while the film technically has a happy ending (they end up together), it isn't all smiles. There are more tears, depressed glances.

You can't help but want to watch the film and wonder what would happen to Jacob and Anna's relationship had there been no deportations, no Jennifer Lawrence, no Ross and Rachel style breakups. From the start, Anna is the one that puts more into the relationship, but Jacob is clearly in love too.

At one point, she makes Jacob a very twee, very borderline stalker scrapbook that would be creepier if you didn't know they were so in love; she is the one that decides they must get married against the odds. Jacob, in the meantime, has no problem seeing other women right away. The only true present he gives her is a chair. A chair.

I can't be cynical about the film, because after all, the film is cynical itself. It is a true measure of the effects a long distance relationship, and with people as approachable as Jones and Yelchin are, you can tell their love is something fragile, not something Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant could conjure.

Most of the dialogue is improvised, and that makes Jones and Yelchin's performances all the more potent. From their first date to the final scene, there is growth and death in their romance that is believable and totally organic - it's a terrific choice from Doremus, whose direction is equally as homegrown. The leading actors are both fantastic, and Lawrence is dependable but underused in a role that calls for just a little bit more.

But "Like Crazy" is so good because it's unlike 90% of romantic dramas. There is absolutely nothing about it that we can doubt - maybe that's why it's so sad. It's the rise and fall of first love, and we're watching it through a lens.