Patron Pick – Like Crazy

This special reward is available to Patreon patrons who pledge at the $10 or $20 monthly levels. Each month, those patrons will pick a film for me to review. If they choose, they also get to include some of their thoughts about the movie. This Pick comes from Bekah Lindstrom.

Like Crazy (2011)
Written by Drake Doremus & Ben York Jones
Directed by Drake Doremus

Improvisation is a complicated skill. When you see performers who are incredible improvisers, they can make it look effortless. The Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Improvisation Manual is a comprehensive textbook I’ve read through a couple times over the years, and it taught me a lot about what is happening during an improvised performance that the audience never sees and is likely not aware of. The performers operate at “the top of their intelligence,” meaning they act as a character while intellectually & emotionally analyzing the story and the relationships in a scene. This is immensely hard to do and makes it look so casual. I’ve come to look at improv through this lens, often impressed at how brilliant some performers are. Like Crazy is a film improvised off a 50-page outline. The problem here is the actors needed far more direction and structure for this to work.

The film follows the ups & downs in the relationship between British exchange student Anna (Felicity Jones) and American Jacob (Anton Yelchin). After she graduates, Anna decides to spend the summer in New York with Jacob, dismissing that she would be overstaying her visa and that this could have negative consequences. Anna goes back to the UK for a family event, and upon trying to re-enter, she is denied, her passport flagged for violation of the visa. Things grow strained due to their long-distance relationship, with Anna’s parents consulting an immigration lawyer. Her father suggests that if she and Jacob were to marry, it might help. He starts a relationship with Samantha (Jennifer Lawrence), who becomes acutely aware of his unrequited feelings. A back-and-forth ensues with Jacob & Anna, sometimes appearing to have found their happy ending only to have it dashed. 

Like Crazy has one big glaring problem that stuck out to me the minute the central conflict was introduced: Jacob had nothing really tying him to the States. He could have set up his handmade furniture business in the UK (which he was already shipping things to), and then he & Anna could have been together. The fact that this was never brought up proves that the film was not presenting an authentic experience. At least explain why he couldn’t do that so it doesn’t hang over the following scenes. 

I was in a long-distance relationship and finally married in 2011, so I should be able to relate to this somehow. Ariana was from Puerto Rico, so she could freely enter the States, but we did struggle with having enough money to visit each other. There was almost an entire year where all we had was Skype & phone calls, and that was hard. However, Anna & Jacob have more options than we did, yet they still flounder. Perhaps, and I know this may sound crazy, they just aren’t that in love with each other, or one is more in love than the other. They don’t do everything they possibly can to make things work; they put forth a moderate effort and sulk that it didn’t work. 

The thing about a tragic love story is that you have to get the audience invested in the relationship fairly quickly. For example, Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg introduces a couple already in progress and then presents a conflict that drives them apart. It focuses most of its attention on the emotions these two feel for each other; much of that is about their future together. When they are torn apart, and we see their pain and how they find ways to discover love in other places, the ache is intensified. The final scene is full of bittersweet emotions as they are successful in their new lives while understanding they just can’t be together. On top of that, Umbrellas is an opera where all dialogue is sung. That makes it an even more significant challenge.

In Like Crazy, our two lovers never have a meaningful conversation on screen. They talk only about meaningless, stupid things or just ask how the other feels, which is met with some version of meh. My immediate sense was that this is a love story seen through the eyes of a child. Ariana confirmed this by calling it a film for “Tumblr girls circa 2010.” This is a very shallow, privileged, white view of romance. Everything is vibes; for me, that is not enough to care about two young people in love. What are their views on being human or bringing children into the world? I couldn’t tell you because Jacob & Anna never have a substantive conversation the entire film.

I’ve been a fan of the late Anton Yelchin’s work, but this is not one of his best. He and Jones are failed by a script that requires them to improvise something that I never bought, they honestly felt. There is no chemistry between these two, which could have happened through proper rehearsal to prepare for how much improv they would do. Jones’ Anna comes off as an idiot, while Jacob reads as a very callous jerk to me. I felt the most sympathy for Lawrence’s Samantha, who was treated like utter shit by Jacob at every turn. He is the epitome of a manipulative hipster fuckboy, and I didn’t want him to end up with anybody. 

I also love a gloomy love story, albeit one where I am invested in the central relationship. I think about Blue Valentine or many of Antonioni’s pictures like La Notte. These films make the intense emotions in a volatile romance palpable; the characters are nuanced and interesting. This is not anywhere close to that level. The time jumps are not handled well and become disorienting at times. The conflicts between our central characters are woefully shallow. Instead, we get childish sulking that reminds me that upper-middle-class white Millennials are some of the least interesting subjects for a film.