Like Crazy Review
By David Kempler
Love, Kardashian Style
This is a romance of young, yearning lovers that is perfectly devoid of real people, or maybe sadly it is truly representative of what passes for romance in today's America. It possesses all of the depth of an episode of the Kardashians. Jacob (Anton Yelchin) and Anna (Felicity Jones) are our star-crossed Romeo and Juliet, or at least that is how we are supposed to view them. The problem is that Romeo and Juliet were being kept apart by external forces out of their control. That was the point. In Drake Doremus' "Like Crazy", the lovers are separated because they are morons, especially Anna.
Anna is a pretty young English lass who is spending time in America. While there, she meets Jacob and they both fall madly in love in a couple of minutes. Their love is the greatest love mankind has ever witnessed. This is the real deal. Nothing can keep them apart. Well, that's not exactly accurate. When Anna is supposed to return to England because her visa is expiring, she instead chooses to stay for a bit longer. Jacob also views this as a splendid notion. The United States government has a different view of their love. When she does finally leave, her visa is taken away and she loses the right to return to America and her precious Jacob. Well, yeah.
Back in her native England, Anna starts a job and does splendidly. Because she cannot return to America until her visa is straightened out, Jacob visits her periodically. They are great loves once again, at least for a week or so at a time. Then he is back to America where he has a girlfriend while Anna sleeps with British gentlemen. This is true love in the Kardashian era.
There is a phoniness to it all and it's greatly magnified because everyone on-screen is oblivious to it. Her parents are incredibly happy and pretentious. Everyone is operating in a make believe world that runs counter to what we are watching. The last scene brings at least a modicum of insight into everything that preceded it. It reminded me of the look on Charles Grodin's face in the original "Heartbreak Kid". Without going into any more detail, it was the only scene in "Like Crazy" that almost made me smile. Almost.
