REVIEW: 'Like Crazy'

Bittersweet indie romance that "illustrates how your first real love is as thrilling and blissful as it is devastating." Winner of the Grand Jury Prize and Special Jury Prize for Acting (for Felicity Jones, Cemetery Junction) at the Sundance Film Festival 2011. Now playing nationwide, click for movie times and trailer.
--------------------------------------------------

If you’ve ever been young and besotted, then had that fall to bits, prepare to relive it. Like Crazy captures the spirit of youth, the intensity of love and the aching disappointment that arises when life gets in the way.

Filmmaker Drake Doremus forgoes the conventions of a typical story structure and instead attempts to portray the most visceral elements of a fragile love affair: the heady rush of excitement, the heartbreak of long distance, and the underlying suspicion many of us come to know when we realise love doesn’t always conquer all. That may frustrate those expecting a plot with more meat on its bones, as the focus barely wavers from the interior lives of its central couple. But this is an ordinary story told in an extraordinarily beautiful way.

It’s no wonder it won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. Managing to keep melodrama at a distance, it’s nonetheless impossible not to get swept up in the relationship. None of this would be possible without rising stars Felicity Jones (Cemetery Junction) and Anton Yelchin fully committing to their roles. Their performances are so natural, their chemistry so magnetic that their connection and conversations don’t feel scripted. It’s always clear what each of them is feeling, even if it’s not said. Doremus has managed to balance the magic of love with the cruel, blunt forces of the real world. You’ll feel this one like crazy.

• Watch trailer for Like Crazy
• More on Like Crazy