Review: ‘Like Crazy’. Love conquers all?

I think it’s fair that the superb Like Crazy is being likened to last year’s favourite indie romance – Blue Valentine. They’re honest, original and absorbing stories with an improvised feel. And yet Like Crazy really is a stand out film all its own.

While Like Crazy lacks the big name stars, here’s hoping the Best Dramatic Film award from Sundance will help to bring in the big audiences it deserves. Felicity Jones also won the Special Jury Prize at Sundance for her turn as Anna, a British college student in Los Angeles who falls for an American, Jacob (Anton Yelchin). When the term ends for the summer, so does Anna’s student visa, forcing her back to the UK.

Like Crazy expertly captures all the little moments that make up a long-distance love: the phone calls, the misunderstandings, the waiting, the extreme joy and disappointment, and all the weary, anxious and in-between times. It does it with charm, a DSLR camera, and a really low budget.

Of course it’s the leads who really sell it: totally believable and low-key, Yelchin and Jones’ Anna and Jacob feel like they could be people you know. But because you sort of feel like you know them – you might, like I did, get kind of annoyed with them and some of their stupid decisions… It’s the beauty and the difficulty of realism!

Adding to the sense of reality is the great support cast, most notably Jennifer Lawrence as Sam, the assistant at the furniture design workshop Jacob sets up out of college. Sam and Jacob begin a good-looking relationship, although she’s aware of far-away first-love Anna. Writer/director Drake Doremus is especially brave in making Sam three-dimensional and fully likeable, instilling in the audience a load of sympathy for her and adding a whole other side to the way we feel about Anna and Jacob’s relationship.

Traditionally with a love story, what we’re supposed to want is for the couple to succeed; but Like Crazy isn’t like that. What Doremus gives us isn’t the golden young romance of dreams and fiction, but the sadness and awkwardness of growing up and having to make decisions, raising a load of questions about love and lost chances along the way.

Like Crazy might be made up of many small and forgettable individual moments, but it sure does leave a huge impression.

8/10

What’s your favourite love story? Isn’t Felicity Jones rad? Watch the trailer below and tell me you’re not tempted to try making a film on your digital camera…