Like Crazy. The opening scene has Anna (Felicity Jones) up front in a college class. She’s presenting her paper that deals with communication/relationships. I have no clue what she’s saying. It is all a muddled pseudo-intellectual talk that you understand when you’re attending the Ivory Towers. And yet there are a couple words that stand out (or maybe I’m just imagining these words): communication, relationships. Those two words represent the backbone of this movie.
You also can’t help but notice in this opening scene that Anna is distracted while she’s standing in front of the class. She’s trying to catch the eye of the student-assistant sitting off to the side, Jacob (Anton Yelchin). She leaves a note on his car windshield, which to me implies that she’s stalked him enough to know where he parks in this vast college campus (I’m just assuming it is meant to be UCLA or USC as the film takes place in Los Angeles and London).
And so starts the first of four relationship cycles. He calls her up and they go out on a coffee date. The conversation is extremely awkward. They warm up to each other and you witness a love that is thrilling. And then this first cycle comes to a close. She’s from the United Kingdom and must return before her student visa expires. They do one last trip to Catalina and knowing that the end is near, Anna grows quiet. This cycle repeats in some degree or another throughout the movie (though the last part of the cycle sometimes turns into bickering versus silence).
Anyone who has watched the trailer understands that she decides to overstay her Visa, deciding not to leave for the UK the day after their Catalina trip. Instead, she sticks around for three more months and leaves (camera highlights a calendar) on an unspecified day in September 2007. Her return to the UK was for a wedding and she quickly tries to return to the US, but is stopped at customs due to her over-staying her student visa and she is returned to the UK.
I wasn’t sure if I should mentioned what comes next, but I read a handful of reviews and the reviewers felt comfortable mentioning the following. When the two are separated, they both have other relationships (affairs). Jacob hooks up with his employee, Sam (Jennifer Lawrence). Anna hooks up with her next door neighbor, Simon (Charlie Bewley).
Their see-other-people relationships results in the following question: is their relationship really just a one sided love affair?
It is Anna who has the least satisfying relationship. There are various scenes between Anna and Simon where tokens of her relationship with Jacob are broken or set aside and you can see her heart breaking. It is understood that Jacob encourages, while Simon controls. It is Anna who has a glow when she is with Jacob versus Simon. It is Anna who reaches out to Jacob.
As it is Anna who has the visa problems, you can’t help but wonder why Jacob doesn’t move to London. Yes, he develops a business designing chairs, but as Anna mentions her parents could help out financially while he set up a similar business in London. And Anna during the third relationship cycle asks, “Can I bring up the topic again of you moving to London?” I felt like his using work as his reason for not moving to London was more of an excuse (therefore the question regarding this love affair). (This movie is a love story so I suspect there is a more complex reason to why Jacob feels he has to stay in Los Angeles, which is addressed off screen or maybe on the editing floor.) Even though Jacob is obviously able to develop a much more satisfying relationship with Sam than Anna with Simon, you can’t help but notice how he drops everything once Anna calls/texts.
My answer is that this is a two way love affair. Others might see it differently.
I might have a handful of issues with the movie such as why is Sam so docile while getting tossed to the side by Jacob (which perhaps speaks more to her personality), but my problems are minor and from beginning to end this movie found my heart. Here’s hoping it finds a large audience.
House cleaning:
I suspect the movie spans four years though I glanced through one review which quoted seven. The difference might be that I’m assuming they met as seniors while the reviewer I read probably believes they met as freshman.
I suspect that both Anna and Jacob come from upper-middle income families.
How is it that LAX and Heathrow are so void of people when the two of them are at these two airports?
I love how the movie has the two characters switching from cell phones to smart phones. It is a reminder that time is passing.
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