Everyone remembers their first love. The lust, the excitement, the yearning, the passion. Ah the retrospective delusion of it all. And that’s the point. Director Drake Doremus delivers the story of SoCal student Jacob (Anton Yelchin) and British exchange student Anna (Felicity Jones) who fall in love, and after an inseparable final year of college, are torn apart. Overstaying her Visa to stay with Jacob, Anna returns to London for a wedding, but when she tries to return to Los Angeles to be with Jacob again, she is detained and sent back to the UK. Over the next few years Jacob and Anna try everything they can to get the Visa ban lifted but to no avail. What ensues is their fight to preserve the relationship while in the meantime growing apart physically and emotionally, and, in the end, to discover if their love will keep them together forever.
The most important part of the romantic drama, and also the one most commonly missing, is the ability to connect with the characters and their situation. Yes, not everyone has been in long distance relationship (by their choice or not) but it is Doremus’ ability to recreate similar feelings we all have experienced to keep us emotionally invested. This is most evident in the dialogue. It has been stated that Doremus and co-screenwriter Ben York Jones provided Yelchin (‘Alpha Dog’ and ‘Fright Night’) and Jones (‘Julie and Julia’) with an outline and much of the dialogue had been improvised. Thus the most apparent mistake of romantic dramas is avoided, force fed lines which instantly convolute the entire movie. Instead the chemistry between Yelchin and Jones feels real, organic, effortless. From there it is all about the restraint of Doremus, no overbearing scores, no experimental camera angles, no lengthy shots, he lets the audience focus solely on the characters short periods of bliss sandwiched between their months of pain and loneliness.
Although Doremus deserves a great amount of praise for the vision the film is nothing without Yelchin and Jones. Yelchin’s Jacob is sweet, soft-spoken, and has an infectious sense of humor. He (Yelchin) relies on Jones to carry the bulk of their verbal exchanges but uses his expressions to connect, or push away depending on the moment, their characters. Jones really does steal the show here. A relative new comer on the American film scene, with only a few cameos in major Hollywood films, the 27 year old (looks much younger in the film) British actress commands attention through every scene. We see the entire emotional spectrum, exchanging laughs for tears, suspicion for anger, happiness for despair, all from frame to frame. Her performance already has garnered some Oscar attention and deservingly so.
We are witnessing the epitome of the classic romantic drama in a 21st century package, complete with a believable story, amazing chemistry between the actors, and deft directing that moves the story along at a great pace. ‘Like Crazy’ creates a world that surpasses the point of analysis; we are left with nothing but the visceral, a torturous beauty of a film.
Grade: A +
Oscar Chances:
Best Picture: Possible
Best Original Screenplay (Doremus/York Jones): Possible
Best Director (Doremus): Long Shot
Best Actor (Yelchin): Long Shot
Best Actress (Jones): Possible
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