À la folie

Don't let it's indie roots fool you. Like Crazy is a nostalgic love story of people who know what they want but don't know how to get it.

The acting is superb. Yelchin and Jones have chemistry and they play it across the board. You will smile, laugh, cry, and hold your breath as these two characters waltz in and out of each others' lives. Jennifer Lawrence and Charlie Bewley also deliver great performances.

The thing that sets Like Crazy apart is the fact that it doesn't try to be anything than an honest love story. It doesn't play up stereotypes. It doesn't beat out the indie clichés. The dialogue is naturally paced and feels richly authentic. The subtext is dramatic.

This film is worth every dollar and dime in my mind. If you get the chance, go see it. Take friends who want to share the fun of a good film.

Like Crazy is a fantastic watch and a fresh take on everything you thought you knew about indie romance.

It's so refreshing to see that really good movies can still be made once in a while. The Philadelphia Film Festival began this past week and chose a great movie to open with: Like Crazy. It won the Grand Jury Prize for best film at the prestigious Sundance Film Festival, and deservedly so. It stars Anton Yelchin, one of those names you may not know but whose face you've probably seen before. He plays Jacob. The other star of the film is Felicity Jones, who won't have as recognizable of a face as she has mainly made movies only in England. She plays Anna. Jacob and Anna meet early in the film while attending the same college. There's an immediate attraction and they instantly hit it off. It's not long before we see how madly in love they fall for each other. It's the kind of love that most people only see in movies and never get to experience for themselves. In fact, they seem so in love and happy together at such an early stage of the film that you wonder where the movie is going from there. Well of course nothing's ever as perfect as it seems, and a big hurdle comes along that stands in their way of complete happiness. Anna is not an American citizen after all. She was attending college in the U.S. but still lives in England. So when she overstays her visa, she finds herself banned from the country. Why did she overstay her welcome? She did it to be with Jacob, of course. When someone is truly in love, they will often do anything they can to be with that person; but they sometimes forget about the consequences of those actions. At this point, the two lovebirds must decide on whether to maintain the new long distance relationship. It's not just any long distance relationship of course, it's an overseas relationship. That's a situation which is pretty tough for just about any couple to pull off. So the movie then shifts its tone to one of compromise and struggle. How much can one person sacrifice for the other? Can they somehow lift the ban, or will Jacob have to move to England thus leaving his current job in the U.S.? Is it all even worth it after it's all said and done? Many questions arise, not to mention the possibility of finding new love in their own respectable countries with someone else. It's a great film dealing with human emotions and how far we will go for another person. The two actors pour their hearts out on screen and it can be mesmerizing at times. Like Crazy opens nationwide on October 28. It's an independent film though so it will surely be shown in limited release, but find it if you can.

Anna (Felicity Jones) and Jacob (Anton Yelchin) are in love with each like crazy. Hence the title, "Like Crazy". They are in, or want to be in, a grown-up relationship — one where they act like adults and are just a part of each other's lives. But they met each other at college and one stupid idea forces them to make grown-up decisions that will affect the rest of their lives quicker than they would have liked.

"Like Crazy" is just about their relationship. We watch as they fall in love, grow apart, find a middle road, and then try and pick an extreme. Anna is a writer and Jacob is a furniture constructor. But their lives are just so inconsequential to the film which is the way it has to be when it is only about their relationship.

The film is minimal in story, in characters, in budget, and in production. And that's what makes it so sweet. Made for only $250,000 and edited in the director's bedroom, it's a story and film of passion.

I found it to be very similar to "Blue Valentine" (2010), but perhaps not as impactful — at least to me. Both played to rave reviews at Sundance, last year "Blue" picked up the Grand Jury Prize nomination, this year "Crazy" got the Jury win for both director Drake Doremus and actress Felicity Jones.

I first saw Felicity Jones last year in "Cemetery Junction" (2010). She played this beautifully innocent girl in a town where innocence just doesn't really exist. In "Like Crazy" she plays a beautiful, adult-like young woman growing up in a world of love but learns that she might not know what love is after all.

I was checking out the storyline when I just realized this movie was the story of my life...almost! But it surprised me very positively.

I was also married to an American citizen just out of College and had to follow the same process in order to be with him. Truth is, the bureaucratic aspect of it has done exactly the same to my relationship. The movie captures so so well the frustration, the disappointment, the fears of not knowing if you have what it takes to fight "like crazy" for each other;

The moment in the movie when she calls him and asks him to come over in 30m, breaks my heart! So real, so in despair.

So, not only because I can relate to the story, but because the acting is superb, so natural and because I believe the production & direction have accomplished what they were looking for with the movie, I give it great points.

The movie is a true mirror of youth, freshness and it's timeless, Like a Romeo & Julieta of contemporariness.

"I thought I understood it. But I didn't. I knew the smudgeness of it. The eagerness of it. The Idea of it. Of you and me." Anna (Felicity Jones)

Like Crazy is about the craziness of love without a Hollywood spin but with a conventional story that tells it like love is: unadorned, raw, a puzzle, and a disappointment. Director Drake Doremus handed the outline to actors Felicity Jones and Anton Yelchin and the rest was an organic script, albeit weaker than ones Brit director Mike Leigh develops with his cast.

Although the dialogue is spare and prosaic, the realism is spot on as the young couple struggles most of all with long distance. She is on visa from the UK to study in LA. He meets her at college; she overstays her visa time and is banned from returning to the US until a lengthy process of appeal is followed.

Those who have struggled with that distance demon know how right the artists get the frustrations and changes that plague those who challenge cupid across the pond over too long a time.

Although many traditional moviegoers will not like the ending, they can be comforted that it is, alas, only too true. If nothing else, Like Crazy is a textbook study of long distance love that should be a caution before young lovers attempt the navigation.