The show stealer at this year's Sundance Film Festival was Like Crazy, which stole the hearts and minds of the judges, capturing the Grand Jury Prize for Drama for writer/director Drake Doremus. It's easy to see why. The cast features the always excellent Anton Yelchin(Star Trek), a young actor always on the cusp of leading man status. Then there's the relatively unknown English actress, Felicity Jones, in a performance that won her a Special Jury Prize and turned her into an instant star. She's like this year's Julie Delpy, with Yelchin her Ethan Hawke dissecting love in Richard Linklater's classic Before Sunrise. Like Crazy has a lot of that same feel, aiming to be more than just your typical whirlwind teen romance. While the actors and Doremus' script often hit at something true emotionally, there's a frustrating lack of insight that makes Like Crazy less than it could be.
The relationship between American design student, Jacob(Yelchin), and British exchange student, Anna(Jones) starts off innocently and awkwardly. She takes the first step he probably never would have by leaving a note on his car. The first date is mutually nerve racking, while underneath a storm of hormones and emotions bubbles. We see their love blossom quickly, through cinematic, musically sweeping montages like a more lovely 500 Days of Summer. The initial bliss of young love, burning at it's brightest, is captured as beautifully as anything you'll ever see. In just a few minutes it's impossible not to root for these kids to succeed. To live happily ever. Even though we don't see much of what makes them tick as a couple, it's enough that they are so in love with being in love to each other. And then it all goes to crap pretty quickly.
Anna makes the bone headed move of overstaying her Visa. She does it for a reason that sounds good at the time. She can't stand to be away from Jacob for a moment, much less a few months, and sticks around for the remainder of the summer. However when she finally tries to re-enter the country, she's forcefully banned from leaving the airport and sent back home. Poor Jacob is left at the airport, flowers in hand, faced with the impossible prospect of life without the woman he loves.
If you were one of the few who saw last year's Going the Distance, then you know where this is going. The prospect of a long distance relationship is more daunting the more committed you are to the other person. The pang of loss is deeper. The loneliness more depressing, and so also is the need for someone to fill the void. Anybody. The phone calls between Anna and Jacob get shorter and less frequent, until finally it becomes easier to just not call at all. She buries herself in work as an editor at a magazine. He's opened his own design business, while also opening his heart to a new woman, Sam(Jennifer Lawrence).Poor Sam. She doesn't know it but she's essentially the fill-in girlfriend. She's like the first shooting guard who replaced Michael Jordan on the Chicago Bulls. You don't want to be that person. You want to be the person after the first replacement. Her relationship with Jacob seems to work, but the specter of Anna looms. When she tearfully calls begging for Jacob to come visit her in London, he drops everything(including Sam) and does it. But something's missing. That spark we saw in the beginning just isn't there. Life and time have gotten in the way, and the confusion on their faces as they try to rekindle what they had is painful.
Doremus hits on a number of small moments like that, where Like Crazy strikes at something honest and real about burgeoning love. He seems to revel in those moments, the euphoric highs and catastrophic lows. Yelchin and Jones, giving two of the most moving performances you'll see all year, also seem to thrive at these times. This would be a completely different film without them, substantially less authentic and gripping. It's when the hurdles really start to mount that Doremus backs off. He never truly goes into Anna and Jacob's self destructive behavior that truly puts their love at risk. Instead he glosses over Jacob's selfishness towards both women in his life. Anna is often portrayed as cold and a little spoiled, and the lusty bond she forges with a hunky neighbor seems tacked on just to give her something to do. To Doremus' credit, he portrays neither side as a saint or total sinner. Both Anna and Jacob make some pretty bad screw ups that hurt the other immensely.
For all it's faults, Like Crazy's emotional honesty will strike a chord thanks to the stars' compelling performances. They'll have you wishing and hoping for a return to the exhilarating love Anna and Jacob once had. This could have been a deeper, more nuanced examination of young lovers making their cautious first steps into a real, adult relationship, but Like Crazy will just have to settle for being a solid, intimate date film.
