Falling in love is easy. Relationships, like math, are hard.
That’s the quick version of “Like Crazy.”It’s also the long version. It’s just not that complicated.
Still, while it slips into annoying cliches, the movie’s simplicity and messy honesty keep it from sliding into B-grade melodrama.
So do the performances of Felicity Jones and Anton Yelchin as the young lovers, who can’t live without each other until they have to. That’s when things get sticky.
He’s a Californian; she’s a Brit, studying abroad for the adventure of it. Sharing a college class, they catch each other’s eye, but she seals the deal with a quirky note tucked under the windshield wiper of his car.
On their first date, they find out they have a lot in common: They both love Paul Simon’s “Graceland” album, they’re both funny and smart, and they’re both adorable. Cue the obligatory falling-in-love montage: racing bumper cars, watching sunsets, walking barefoot on the beach, etc.
When it’s time for her to return to England — her student visa is about to expire — she can’t bear to leave, so she doesn’t. But that whim gets her deported and banned from returning to the States.
Forced to separate, they start to shape lives of their own, only it feels as if there’s something missing. But when they get back together, something is missing, too.
Director and co-writer Drake Doremus is determined to make “Like Crazy” a realistic romance, and he succeeds. The joy is unabashed, the verbal sparring is raw, and there are loose ends and unspoken words aplenty.
Jones, who won a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival for her performance, couldn’t be more fresh-faced and charming. Yelchin, best-known as the young Chekov in the “Star Trek” reboot, seems overcome by her life-affirming spirit, and it’s hard to argue with the sensation.
But the downside of a realistic romance is that all those uneasy moments are, well, uneasy to sit through. And it doesn’t help that Doremus lards them up with more montages of avoided glances and flashbacks to happier times.
Honesty is one thing. Being tedious about it is something else.
