'Like Crazy' explores the challenges of
long-distance relationships, young love

Photo courtesy of Allied Integrated Marketing

Felicity Jones and Anton Yelchin star in this new film from writer-director Drake Doremus.

By Eric Strachan, December 2011
Staff Writer    

Have you ever considered what it would be like to watch a videotape of your first serious romance in all its insouciant, gritty detail? That's something like the experience one has watching "Like Crazy," a new film from writer-director Drake Doremus. It is what gives the film its sense of authenticity, but also what makes it difficult to watch in places.

The film portrays the love story of two college students, Anna (Felicity Jones) and Jacob (Anton Yelchin). A critical turning point occurs when Anna, a British exchange student, rashly decides to overstay her student visa so that she and Jacob can spend the rest of the summer in bed together. When she subsequently tries to reenter the United States on a travel visa, she is denied entry and forced to return to England. This provides the main tension or conflict that drives the rest of the film, the remainder of which explores the struggles of maintaining a long-distance relationship.

Whereas the film, for the most part, successfully avoids oversentimentalizing long-distance relationships, its handling of youthful romance is another matter. We are supposed to believe that merely by grinning at each other and gazing longingly into each other's eyes, these two have found a love that is worth fighting for. Ultimately, it is not convincing. What transpires between them more closely resembles infatuation than love, and the more cynical viewers will find themselves wishing that Anna and Jacob would stop clinging to this relationship and get on with their lives. Casting further doubt on the depth of their love for each other is the ease with which they slip into and out of relationships with their respective paramours, played by Jennifer Lawrence and Charlie Bewley.

The film, which garnered a Grand Jury Prize at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, is likely to bring Doremus' improvisational directing style to a wider audience. Like his earlier films, most notably "Spooner" (2009) and "Douchebag" (2010), Doremus works from an extended outline of scenes and plot points, but the dialogue is improvised by the actors. The intent is to make the movie appear naturalistic and less contrived.

With regard to "Like Crazy," Doremus expressed the hope that "it feels like it's almost a documented relationship that we stole and presented to you." In this regard he succeeds, and perhaps too well. The movie is voyeuristic by design, which can be a bit discomfiting insofar as it reveals aspects of the characters' lives and thoughts that are sanitized or glossed over in other films. Here we are privy to all the inane arguments and petty jealousies that characterize immature relationships.

Many people will likely view this film as a serious departure from Doremus' earlier work. While those movies had their poignant moments, they appeared to be aimed more at eliciting laughs than high drama. There is, however, at least one discernible thread that connects these films. Those earlier films feature lead characters who are not prepared to enter adulthood. In "Spooner," it is a 30-year-old man who still lives at home with his parents. In "Douchebag," the focus is on the relationship between two brothers, one a struggling artist who is still financially dependent on his parents, and the other an engaged hipster who is not quite prepared for the responsibilities of marriage. In the end, the characters' romantic ventures seldom result in success, but they are at least prepared to grow up. Though the resolution of Anna and Jacob's relationship in "Like Crazy" is intentionally left ambiguous, one can imagine them following a similar character arc.

To the extent that we are meant to take seriously the idea that Anna and Jacob are genuinely in love, however, the movie founders. Whether it is the lack of chemistry between the lead actors or the improbably fast pace with which the characters consummate their relationship, it is ultimately unconvincing. Ostensibly, when the actors sit across from each other exchanging half-smiles, we are supposed to conclude that there is some unfathomably deep bond between them. Instead, it feels like we are watching two people playing at being in love. One struggles to find a reason to root for their relationship and may be inclined to sympathize with the people they keep dumping in order to make one more go at it.

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