Like Crazy
Like Crazy is a nice movie, but I'm not sure I'd go farther than that with it. The movie is essentially Drake Doremus's visual musings on love- particularly young love- and how people who are right for each other will always find a way back to each other. I have to admit, immediately after seeing the movie, I thought it was awesome and fresh. The more I thought about it, however, the less I thought of it. This isn't to say it's horrible- or even remotely bad, it just has some flaws.
The story is fairly basic: Anna, a Brit, and Jacob, an American, meet and fall hard for each other at an L.A. University. Things get complicated when Anna decides to overstay her student visa and upon trying to return following a brief visit to her homeland is banned from entering the country. The movie explores whether these two who seem destined for each other can overcome a literal ocean as well as an ocean of complications that develop due to the physical ocean between them. They come together and fall off and come together and so on and so forth and we, the viewers, are invited along for a front row seat to the love, the struggles, the roller coaster ride is a long-distance relationship. Do Jacob and Anna have what it takes to make it through such complications as... well... their lives moving on? This is essentially the question at the heart of the movie. A question that I am not sure ever gets answered (not that there's anything wrong with that).
On the surface, the movie has a lot going for it. Writer/director Doremus opts to tell his tale in many places by showing you the story. You see Jacob and Anna fall for each other. The two don't necessarily need to tell you. This is done through heavy usage of montage scenes. Not a horrible way of doing it, but it does- at times- create a feeling that the movie bogs down into what amounts to little more than a string of interconnected music videos. The videos are full of subtle emotion and are generally pleasant to see, but it still feels a bit odd. Not that I'm a fan of filmmakers telling you what is happening at the expense of letting you see it for yourself. I'm not, but I think there has to be a balance between montages and movie scenes, and here the film leans heavily in favor of montage.
This may be because there is little dialog to fall back on. In fact, from what I understand there was very little to no written dialog in the script. Doremus- going for a more authentic feel, I suppose- had his actors largely improvise the dialog, feeding the scenarios and scenes to base their words on. It does make for an interesting movie, though at times the conversations seem to flatten out into awkwardness- if even slightly so. Is this more in keeping with real life? Sure, I suppose... but not in the way that the movie shows it. It seemed at times as though Jacob and Anna had barely known each other at times when they had clearly been intimately involved in each other's lives for a decent amount of time. It left me wondering if they didn't shoot the film out of sequence. Surely, by the end of shooting, Felicity Jones and Anton Yelchin would have developed some manner of solid chemistry and I do believe this is on full display for much of the film. I suppose on final analysis, the lack of written dialog isn't necessarily a strike against the film. It does provide what seem to be authentic moments throughout the movie- in fact it allows for many more of these than the peculiarly awkward exchanges.
In the end, I guess where the movie started to lose me was with how immature each of the main characters kind of comes off. I don't think Doremus was aiming to paint his two lovers as something of naive, clueless folks, but in some cases, this is how they end up on screen. Yelchin's Jacob is particularly guilty of this. After college, Jacob begins work as a furniture designer. Sure his work is supposed to have a distinctly American- if not Californian feel to it- but it seems to me that seeing as Anna has rather immaturely ignored the expiration of her student visa and is thus eventually marooned off in the UK, Jacob- if he is as crazy in love with Anna as he claims- could offer to make things work by heading across the pond to ply his trade. This is, in fact, brought up as a suggestion during the story, but Jacob roundly rejects the idea because "it would be really hard" as he put it. Yes, Anna was foolish almost to the point of it being unbelievable to completely ignore the implications of her decision to over stay her visa. She should have known better; after all, she was only initially looking at a three month separation from Jacob- something that hardly seemed worth risking the long term health of the relationship. But the fact that Jacob won't consider trying to go the extra mile for the love of his life simply because setting up shop in England would be too hard is kind of ridiculous. It would be another story completely if Jacob had a job where location mattered more. But he doesn't, and, as such, he kind of comes off as a completely selfish, barely invested boyfriend. It would be different if there were even family considerations hemming Jacob in, but there aren't. He just doesn't want to go through the extra effort of relocating to a new country to create his furniture. I guess even once-in-a-life-time love has its limits.
There are other examples of how these two lovers show their age and/or lack of maturity as well, but I suppose listing all the ways they bugged me in that manner would amount to little more than nitpicking. In truth, the movie has a lot going for it... starting with Yelchin and especially Felicity Jones and Jennifer Lawrence. Lawrence- who here plays Jacob's rival love interest- is proving to be a completely mesmerizing talent. She draws you in and forces a sense of empathy with her character. It was pretty cool to see. Jones, a relative newcomer and now festival darling is deserving- in my mind- of the loads of praise being sent her way. Just as Carey Mulligan was in An Education, Jones is an absolute breath of fresh air in this film. Nuanced, affecting, subtle, emotional, balanced- incredible work.
The movie also has the fact that it is an easy story to which to relate going for it as well. Many people have been through long distance relationships. The feelings these characters are experiencing are real. The complications to their relationship are easily based in reality. On that level, the movie isn't particularly hard to "get". And to top that off, it was gorgeously shot as well.
Are any of these enough to compensate for some awkwardness and frustrating character development? Well... yes, actually. In my mind they are. Like I said, at its core it's a nice movie depicting a good story through exceptional performances... it's just lacking in some spots (I really do wish the characters had shown a little more growth/maturity... particularly Jacob.. because I don't think it was Doremus's intention to make him a relatively selfish, moody dude... it's just hard for me to see his not wanting to invest the effort it would take to establish his business in the UK as justification for tossing away what seemed like a great thing for him... a great relationship.... but that's just me). I guess, in the end, it really was a hard movie to dislike, despite its blemishes... kind of like a good relationship, right? Well... yeah.. something like that.
Grade: B+
No comments:
Post a Comment