Note to self: don’t date chicks with British accents.
American Jacob (Anton Yelchin) and British Anna (Felicity Jones) meet and fall madly in love atcollege in Los Angeles, but must make their relationship work long distance when Anna returns to London. With an ocean between them, their trust is tested, forcing them to confront the idea that their love may be impermanent. Or can it survive against the odds?
After seeing all of the trailers for this film, I had a feeling this was going to be my kind of film considering it was like a ‘Blue Valentine’ for teens. Except this one didn’t make me want to chop my head off so much.
Director and co-writer Drake Doremus does a sensational job here with this film because it runs at a brisk 89 minutes, but he somehow is able to jam in 5 years of these kids relationship into that run-time without any real problems. Months almost past in between scenes and although it never tells you when time has actually changed, I knew right away exactly when and where this story went.
Everything here seems pretty natural because being in love and being young, I know how it feels to have that young love. It’s something beautiful, something grand, something unlike any other, and something that just takes you away from the rest of the world and almost make you feel like nothing can tear you apart. However, sometimes love can be very hurtful and ugly. This film shows that as these two have to go through many hurdles being away from each other so much and at times it’s painful to watch since they just don’t know what to do and wait to see where life takes them. It takes them together, it takes them apart, and other times it takes them to places they would have least expected, but either way, everything here felt natural and real as if this would happen say two people fell madly in love and had to go through a huge problem such as this.
The problem Doremus runs into with this film is the fact that I do think that he runs into the occasional problems of falling into the usual romantic-drama schmaltz. There are moments that feel so natural and real that I started to believe it, but then there were other moments where something would happen and it would seem totally random, but that one person would make the biggest deal about it.
Without giving away any major spoilers something here happens in this film that has to do with a bracelet that comes off of Anna at a very serious time and she makes the biggest stink about it, when in reality, I highly doubt somebody would care especially “at that certain moment”. I know I’m being incredibly vague, but I just can’t say it. I also barely ever saw Jacob actually working on his job as a furniture designer. Yeah he makes a chair here and there but he’s always out doing something and leaving for Britain, when nobody else is there. That’s gotta be a great business he has going for him!
The performances of Felicity Jones and Anton Yelchin is what really kept me into this film. Yelchin has always been playing these sort of little child-like roles like in ‘Charlie Bartlett’, or ‘Fright Night’, or even ‘Terminator: Salvation’ for that matter but here he shows a great growth in maturity with his role as Jacob because he has to act like a normal adult would but still have emotions as if he just got stood up at the carnival. Trust me, I know how that shit feels. Jones is even better as Anna who doesn’t know what she wants, needs, or even believes in anymore and has so much emotions going through her facial expressions that it’s almost hard to not shed a tear watching her shed one as well.
They are both great together and they feel natural because as time goes on, they both start from something funny, cute, and a little goofy, but then go to sad, frustrated, mad, and hurt. All of these emotions come out perfectly between both of them together, whether they are speaking or not speaking, you know that something is right about them together and although the story may have some unbelievability to it, Yelchin and Jones really made me believe in their relationship together.
I think that this film really misused Jennifer Lawrence as Jacobs on-and-off again lady friend, Samantha because shes really cool and chill. I didn’t see why Jacob was thinking so hard when he was with her because in all honesty, all she ever wanted to do was just love him and make him happy and I also want to know what she was doing with such a sad sap in the first place. You see how he is without Anna and it’s a surprise that he actually starts going out with Samantha in the first place.
Another and final problem I had with this film is not just a problem with this film but also plenty others. What I’m trying to say is that I’m getting real damn tired of these ambiguous endings. I usually like them but lately it seems like almost every film I run into every day has one and this one has the worst of all considering the note they end on is not only pretty sad but also abrupt as if the film was not finished. This bothered me a lot but its a new occurrence in the film industry and I hope if more and more films are going to have these ambiguous endings, then they should at least not be as abrupt and random.
Consensus: Like Crazy has its fair share of schmaltz, cliches, and unbelievability, but it’s honest look at young love that is beautiful but sometimes hurts is refreshing, as well as the unbelievable chemistry and performances from Jones and Yelchin.
8/10=Matinee!!
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