Anton Yelchin, Felicity Jones, Jennifer Lawrence, Alex Kingston
Directed by Drake Doremus
Rating: B
"Like Crazy" is a love story. Boy and girl date, fall in love, enter complications here that during the course of the film, they try to work out. So what is it that attracts us to watch a movie we've seen told hundreds of different ways?
Anna (Jones) is from England, studying in Los Angeles with a student visa. Here comes Jacob (Yelchin), a local student. They fall in love. Anna's visa expires at the end of the semester, but she chooses to stay with Jacob. It's too hard to leave him. When she briefly goes home to England during the summer and comes back to Jacob in L.A. immigration officials refuse her entry because she violated her visa. The film boils down to their struggle of keeping a relationship.
We see both perspectives of Jacob and Anna. They fall in love fast, and for Anna, hard. The film is intimate, capturing the moments they fall in love, showing the first few months they're together in snapshots and indie music. When it's time for Anna to leave, we don't want her to go as much as she struggles to decide whether she should stay or not. But ultimately, they do get separated, and it's that time apart when Anna is denied entry into the U.S. that Jacob's love is quickly fading. He finds another girlfriend, played by Jennifer Lawrence. Anna tries to let go but she finds herself dialing Jacob's number after a night out with friends. She tells Jacob to come to London, and he goes willingly as soon as can.
It's undeniable that Yelchin and Jones have an on-screen chemistry together. It's needed to portray these characters well, to get across to viewers they're just two young adults fighting to keep themselves together. You want their relationship to thrive because you've invested time into seeing their relationship start. "Like Crazy" may not be the perfect love story but if you like sad romance movies, not a cheesy romantic comedy, this may be one to add to your "must-watch" list.
