Like Crazy was the toast of the 2011 Sundance Film Festival walking away with the Grand Jury Prize for best film, and deservedly so. The film opens with Jacob (Anton Yelchin) meeting Anna (Felicity Jones) in class of their L.A. area college. Anna nervously leaves a cute love note on Jacob's car windshield wiper, the two go on a date, and the sparks fly. After graduation, immigration issues for Anna result in the forced separation of the two love birds and proceed to show the couple fight to stay together over the next several years.
Like Crazy is a new love story for the ages. Yelchin & Jones deliver incredible chemistry together as we follow them on their first date. The scenes are so real it feels more like a documentary than a live action scripted film. A chemistry found in the days of Woody Allen & Diane Keaton in Annie Hall, or more recently with Joseph Gordon-Levitt & Zooey Deschanel in 2009's underrated 500 Days of Summer.
As the story progresses over the years, the two fight for the survival of their love, and the film fights any sense of the normal Hollywood formula to become something more real. Just when you expect the story to follow the path we are used to seeing in the mass graveyard that is the Rom-Com, it swings away proving that life and especially love are unpredictable.
Kudos to director Drake Doremus, and actors Yelchin, Jones and a small, yet stinging performance by Academy Award nominee Jennifer Lawrence. They could have easily made another romantic film made for fantasy land, but instead took the harder path and made something real. Like Crazy is a small movie with a small budget, and may fall under the Oscar radar, but hopefully indie film lovers and those looking for something outside the holiday blockbuster landscape will find this small beautifully made gem.
For more quick reviews check out www.FilmStallion.com
Like Crazy is a new love story for the ages. Yelchin & Jones deliver incredible chemistry together as we follow them on their first date. The scenes are so real it feels more like a documentary than a live action scripted film. A chemistry found in the days of Woody Allen & Diane Keaton in Annie Hall, or more recently with Joseph Gordon-Levitt & Zooey Deschanel in 2009's underrated 500 Days of Summer.
As the story progresses over the years, the two fight for the survival of their love, and the film fights any sense of the normal Hollywood formula to become something more real. Just when you expect the story to follow the path we are used to seeing in the mass graveyard that is the Rom-Com, it swings away proving that life and especially love are unpredictable.
Kudos to director Drake Doremus, and actors Yelchin, Jones and a small, yet stinging performance by Academy Award nominee Jennifer Lawrence. They could have easily made another romantic film made for fantasy land, but instead took the harder path and made something real. Like Crazy is a small movie with a small budget, and may fall under the Oscar radar, but hopefully indie film lovers and those looking for something outside the holiday blockbuster landscape will find this small beautifully made gem.
For more quick reviews check out www.FilmStallion.com