Like Crazy is a raw, honest, heartfelt and REAL, modern indie-romance, which may leave you slightly traumatised walking out of the cinema (don’t let that put you off- ha!). British exhange student Anna (Felicity Jones) is at college in LA when she falls for classmate, Jacob (Anton Yelchin). It is an intoxicating, deep, first love for both of them. What follows is an impulsive decision which ends up keeping the couple apart, across the Atlantic, for the majority of the rest of the film. The events are partly inspired by writer/ director Drake Doremus’ own relationship with an ex-girlfriend who was refused entry to the States after overstaying her student visa. This is Doremus’ third feature at only 28 years old. He conveys a lot with not much in the way of a script and what dialogue is used, is largely improvised. The fantastic young cast (including Jennifer Lawrence in a memorable but thankless role, as a new love interest) being provided merely an outline. And that’s probably why this all rings so funny, painful and true. You feel almost unsettlingly close to their relationship.
We follow Anna & Jacob from age 19-26, and during this time they’re not always physically not together, but are by no means apart. The time-lapse is well handled through things like the evolution of the couple’s mobile phones, and by Anna transforming from hippy, vintage-dress loving psych student to a slick young woman who is rising fast at the fashion magazine she works for. Felicity Jones is just radiant and makes such a strong impression in her brilliant portrayal of Anna. She fought hard for this role and sent through her audition tape where she filmed herself in the shower acting out the last scene in the film.
Like Crazy spends less time dealing with the romance and more, examining how the couple deal with the strain of their long-distance relationship: coping with the ever-present shadow of looming departure, having to ‘start over’ each time they meet, the way a visiting partner becomes the odd person out in social situations, realising the person’s life continues without you there… You may think the stakes aren’t high- you know, they’re just kids, they don’t have kids, they’re not married… but you are reminded that when things happen to you as a young adult, it feels like the world. Nothing could be more important.
Maybe I found this so honest and heartfelt because I have some first-hand knowledge of long-distance relationships, because I too have been in a US Immigraton interview room for hours, I too have had the joyful welcomes and the tearful goodbyes, the text communication across time zones and the desperate feeling of just wanting to be together. This movie gets it all so right. It’s not painful to watch because I yearn for the past or yearn for someone else, but because it reminds you that youth isn’t all nostalgia and laughs and parties, the heartbreak of first love is very real. Doesn’t the fact that you’re young and impulsive and that you fall hard and don’t yet have all the coping mechanisms needed, just make it hurt more?
‘Like Crazy’ is in cinemas from this Thursday March 1.
