Like Crazy

Starring: Anton Yelchin, Felicity Jones, Jennifer Lawrence, Charlie Bewley
Directed by: Drake Doremus
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Drama, Romance
2011

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Two college students (Anton Yelchin, Felicity Jones) fall in love. Due to a visa issue, they try to maintain a long-distance relationship between Los Angeles and London. This proves to be far more difficult than they imagined.

Review:

Tim: I'm really not trying to hold independent movies down, but I just didn't care that much for Like Crazy. I appreciate these small, stripped down movies, but this one took it a little too far. The story felt a bit melodramatic, and while the movie has some strengths, overall, it felt like too much of a chore to get through. This was an okay movie, but overall, it was pretty disappointing.

It's nice to see un-Hollywood romantic dramas, but this one could have used a little more Hollywoodness. The film is surprisingly quiet and stripped down. It feels like a completely no-frills film. There isn't much background music. There's no big, sweeping shots. This is an incredibly close, intimate movie. Unfortunately, it feels a little too intimate. I felt like we were so close to these characters that the movie didn't create any breathing room. I wanted more pulled back shots. I felt like the shooting style created a cramped quality to the film. By the end, I felt like I'd spent far too much time with these characters, and I was ready for a break. That's not a good feeling to have.

The story felt a bit too melodramatic, although I understand what the film was trying to do. This is really a story about two people drawn together by an almost magnetic connection. They have something with each other that they don't have with anyone else in the world. That is touching, and we see that when you have a connection like that, it's hard to completely sever it. Even if you want to, even if you try to move on, there's always something pulling you back. I get that. However, the film just feels like a constant stream of on-again-off-again drama between these two. It's not as if the relationship moves in any kind of direction- it just kind of travels in circles. That might be real-life and realistic, but it doesn't make for a very exciting film.

I typically like Anton Yelchin. I think he's an underrated actor and has potential to be a real star. I thought he was mostly good here, but he was limited by the film. This movie is very realistic, but it's so obvious that most of the movie was unscripted. This gives the film a true-life feel to it, but it also feels meandering and boring. Yelchin is certainly good in the film, but not as good as he could have been. Still, I enjoyed his performance. I also liked Felicity Jones, for the most part. She works well with Yelchin and I believed them as a couple. That is important. However, she wasn't great in the role and on more than one occasion, her performance got on my nerves and annoyed me. I didn't see a lot of star potential in her performance, but she could be a decent supporting actress.

While Like Crazy has some redeeming qualities, I found the movie too bland and forgettable. While I liked the characters initially, it felt like the movie was trying to make me tired of them. That happened, and by the end, I wanted nothing more than a break away from them. This movie isn't very good, and it manages to make 90 minutes feel like 190 minutes. I didn't hate the film, but I didn't like it very much, either.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- 6


If You Enjoyed This Movie, We Recommend: Blue Valentine, Charlie Bartlett