Film Reviews

Like Crazy

• Rating:
• Director: Drake Doremus
• Starring: Anton Yelchin
• Details: US/89mins 12A

Impressively assembled on a slight budget, this indie drama has the cool factor in spades, while the romance at its core feels organic as they come. Saturated in the kind of emotional ambiguity that is true of most relationships, Like Crazy feels real, and that's the highest compliment I can give it.
Yelchin and Jones are Jacob and Anna; a young couple who meet each other in college and quickly fall deeply in love. The problem is that Anna is from London and in Los Angeles on a student visa - thus she must return home for several months during the summer. When she decides to violate the terms of her visa and go back to the UK for a family visit, she's denied entry back into America and deported back home. Heartbroken, the couple try every conceivable way possible to make the long distance relationship work, while trying to get Anna back into the states.
A lovely film executed with an almost documentary-like looseness, Like Crazy doesn't just hit on themes of love and loss, but actually gets under the skin of its two main characters. Everyone has been in a relationship of a similar intensity so said characters are instantly relatable, and it's fitting that we don't really see much of their world outside of each other. Other players come into the picture, just like life, and (the amazing) Jennifer Lawrence is one of them. If there's one issue with Like Crazy she's it; a ridiculously hot and seemingly perfect colleague of Jacob's, Lawrence is a magnetic presence and ultimately distracting. That said, it's a small part of an otherwise wonderful film.
I've never been completely sold on Yelchin as a leading man; he seems to be inching towards a young John Cusack in terms of persona and choice or roles, but lacks some of his affability. His work here is still great, and he and Jones have definite chemistry. The young British actress was very impressive in the otherwise uneventful Chalet Girls, and has a girl next store quality and a natural warmth that can't be taught in any acting school.
Drake Doremus has directed a film that's tonally spot on, and gotten superb work out of his cast. Not a conventional romantic drama and all the better for it.

Review by Mike Sheridan