I never see movies in the theater while I’m at school, so when I go home I’m usually just content to sink down and inhale the popcorn smell during any old flick. However, as fun as the cinema is in itself, seeing a truly great film makes those overpriced tickets more worthwhile.
Luckily, during Thanksgiving Break, I had just such an experience.
Like Crazy, the “Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize” winner dawns on its audience slowly and in stages. Since seeing it I’ve undergone the desire to dismiss it, ridicule it, and mention it to everyone I meet—but mainly just to watch it again.
Like the notorious 500 Days of Summer, it’s one of those films that makes you want to punch someone in the face—the characters, an ex-lover, yourself…Also like 500 Days of Summer, it prodded the sleeping dragon of my analytical instinct—admittedly a light sleeper.
So, if you’re into dissecting films about modern love and don’t mind SPOILERS, read on.
Jacob (Anton Yelchin) and Anna (Felicity Jones) meet in LA, where they are both students. Anna indicates her interest in Jacob by leaving a long, personal letter under his windshield wiper with a poem that she’s written. The two begin seeing each other, and eventually dating.
On their first date Anna reads Jacob an original poem, the sentiments of which become a sort of underlying theme for the film. Some of the connections between her poem and the plot made sense right away, others I think I would only get after a second viewing.
Anna reads, “I thought I understood it but I didn’t…only the idea of it.” The “idea” of love versus the “reality” of love is the conflict that guides the plot along.
The initiation of Anna and Jacob’s relationship is an ideal in itself, and certainly more sublime than the average American college affair. The characters seem to be adept at living in the moment, although both know that Anna is on a limited student visa. Jacob isn’t scared off by Anna’s advances, nor are they merely “hooking up.”
On a campus where many of us hide behind the words “I want you” or resign ourselves to the lowest level of commitment, Jacob and Anna’s leap of faith is certainly enviable—but it is not infallible. In fact, the film pushes its conflict almost into the point of cliché by harping that relationships in practice can never be as perfect as they are in theory.
At the same time, the film very nearly anticipates its own critics by saying, “Hey, love itself is a freaking cliché, you know why? Because love, without fail, makes everyone crazy.” (Hence the title, and the concept of the movie poster.)
It’s true that we fall in love like crazy…before we fall out of love like crazy. We then end up despising the person we loved like crazy, but mainly just because we miss them like crazy.
The trailer for the film begins with the lyrics, “wise men say only fools rush in,” and the film demands that the audience think as both a fool and a wise man. It forces you to simultaneously critique and sympathize with the characters. For example, when Anna decides to violate her visa by staying with Jacob through the summer, the viewer practically wants to reach into the screen and give her a good shaking. Yet, the romantic in each of us can’t help but feel we might do the same if given the same circumstances.
Thus, the movie is there not just to glorify Anna and Jacob, but also to wag its finger at them.
Even more difficult to watch, is the havoc Anna and Jacob’s romance wreaks on other people’s lives, namely, their “stand-ins.” The film doesn’t shy away from showing the unintended casualties of two people’s “perfect” love story.
There is a Gatsby-esque notion inherent in Like Crazy–the couple pursues a sense of mutual wonder that only really existed at the relationship’s outset.
In the beginning, Anna and Jacob love each other and want to be together. In the end–although they still love each other–they also feel obliged to be with each other, a condition that cheapens the love by some perspectives.
In other words, nobody understands the characters like they understand each other. They don’t have a choice, they have to be together. This lack of choice leaves a bitter taste in the mouth of the modern young adult.
Furthermore, Jacob’s gift to Anna of a bracelet engraved with the word “Patience” is a jab at most young people, who cannot stomach slow Wifi let alone a long term relationship. When the bracelet is symbolically broken by Anna’s stand-in boyfriend (not Jacob), it’s hard not to grumble “Ok mom, I get it.”
The film deals a lot with the idea of distance—both physical and metaphorical. There is, of course, the separation between California and London. However, more importantly, there is the metaphorical distance that grows between the characters.
A stark contrast exists between their first date, in which Anna and Jacob touch fingers through a glass door, and the final scene in which they are locked in a naked embrace. As they stand together in the shower the film flashes back to the first moments of their relationship, driving home the message that there was an ideal of intimacy then which they could never get back.
Like Crazy’s premise, that even those who choose to “fight” for love don’t end up with the love they started with, may be a troubling one.
However, the film doesn’t say that we can’t have love–leaving us no choice but to try for it like crazy…