Film Review: 'Like Crazy' ... it may drive you crazy.

Often, as I'm sure many others do too, I will search the internet for a Rom-Com to pass the time. Usually this is done on a bed day, or evening in which I want to feel soppy while gorging on chocolate. On more than one occasion, this search has led me to 'Like Crazy'. 

'Like Crazy' is a film starring Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones, as two students who fall in love. Not an unheard of story. Their love, as all do, has a lot of obstacles to overcome and endure. The biggest of which being the fact that the female of the pair, Anna, is a British student studying in America. 

Their crazy love causes stupidity, of course, and Anna ignores her expired Visa and stays a few months too many in Los Angeles with her partner, Jacob. When she tries to return to America, border control send her right back. 

The premise and potential for such a good film - and yet my hopes were dashed. 

Luckily I wasn't too optimistic with this one. As mentioned above, this is not the only time my search for a romance to pass the time has led me to 'Like Crazy', it is just the only time I have forced myself to give it a chance. 

Probably twice before this viewing I have begun to watch this film. Each time I switched off less than two minutes in. 

I wasn't drawn in, I wasn't attracted to the characters and didn't empathise with them. Despite the director rushing into the unrealistic and cringe-worthy romance the whole thing seemed simultaneously slow and fast paced. The opening was boring. I found myself thinking, if this was the opening to a book I'd neither borrow it from a library or buy it. 

Today though, after coming across the clichéd title in my search once more, I decided to give it a go and see it through. I was in the mood for something romantic and realistic, as well as sad, and according to the reviews it seemed like a good call. I was also drawn in by the fact Alex Kingston and Jennifer Lawrence appear, and as a fan of theirs I had hope. 

I watched the film all the way through and wished I had believed my previous fears.

Pretty much the same look of disappointment
the film gave me.

I finished the viewing with no more love for the "loved up" couple than at times they seemed to have for each other. I didn't care for them, or their story, which became as confusing as their feelings for each other in parts.

There was no real indication for time passing, other than the characters casually mentioning years passing in conversation, which made what was supposed to be a relationship witnessed through the years, appear to have happened all in the space of what could have been a year. Which probably made the fickle couple seem more crazy (not in the about-each-other-way) than they actually were. 

If you are ever searching the web for a romance to fill your day/evening/mind then definitely, please, look further. Even if, like I sometimes do, you are wanting a romantic comedy of sorts, something predictable that you don't have to pay much attention to on a lazy-viewing, still look further than 'Like Crazy'. It's so mind numbingly boring, plain and dull, than it will drive you to get out of your bed, put a halt on your lazy day, in order to hunt for a hammer to destroy whatever device you just watched it on while you contemplate how your relaxing lazy evening has been ruined. 

Hopefully this manages to save at least one person from wasting 90 minutes of their life.