Like Crazy

The first time I saw the movie "Office Space", I had high expectations.  When I watched it, I thought the first 45 minutes was awesome.  There was so much great content, and I was impressed.  But, as the movie went on, the sketch comedy nature of the thing couldn't sustain itself, and it ran out of steam.  I felt this way as well about this movie.  It has a very charming premise, wonderful performances, but somehow, it didn't quite pack the emotional punch that it could have.

My wife Stephanie and I sort of debated about this movie.  It follows two young people, Jacob and Anna, who meet at the end of their college years.  Anna is from London, and she is required to go back to London at the end of the year due to her student visa's expiration.  Anna blows off her immigration issues and decides to spend a special summer with Jacob.  After separating, Anna attempts to come back to the US to reunite with Jacob.  Due to her law breaking on her previous visit, she is sent back to the UK without being able to see Jacob.  The rest of the film follows their relationship as it moves on from a promising beginning to a more realistic, long term clash of two people with different ideals.

The movie has guts, I will admit.  Maybe I craved a more Hollywood ending, one which this movie does not provide.  Though the more I consider the movie, the more its appeal grows.  It won the Grand Jury prize at the Sundance film festival, and it is not hard to see why.  It features fully improvised dialogue, a fact which I did not know while I watched the film.  The film had a remarkable air of authenticity, and I suppose this feature of its production contributed to how real it felt.  The movie is at its best in the small moments.  Witness the distance between Jacob and Anna at the scene in the market.  Their back and forth will be familiar to anyone who has had rocky times in relationships.  I suppose this includes almost everyone.  Both Jacob and Anna begin separate relationships while they are apart, and they begin to have an almost desperate need to still be in love the way they were that first summer. 

This does deal well with the Paul McCartney idea that "The love you take is equal to the love you make."  Both of these characters do not nurture their relationship they way it needs to be, and a promising beginning (complete with a ringing endorsement from Anna's parents) begins to waiver.  I had trouble relating to some of the decisions the characters made, especially if they are crazy in love as they say they are.  All of this makes for a complicated story in spite of its simplicity (if that makes any sense).  There are several shots in the final moments that reveal much about the two characters.  It seems that Anna may have been the driving force behind the relationship, while Jacob loved her but seemed to not love her as much.  This movie will need to be watched again.  It is a story with a great deal of truth about relationships.