Today I started my first intern job. Everything was so new. I felt so small after experiencing the “real world”. I was stuck with my awkward fitting in stage. I’m a very shy guy, so meeting new people is very hard for me. It was hard trying to fit in in a place where everyone knew everyone and knew what to do. They share their stories and tell inside jokes that I can’t relate to. Like i normally do, I just sat in my corner reading and eavesdropping to their conversations. Long story short, I felt alone. Now you’re probably asking what this has to do with the movie? Well after feeling alone the whole day, I didn’t want to watch an “alone” kind of movie. So here I am reviewing a romantic movie. I wasn’t really sure if it was happy or sad before watching. I just needed a little romance somehow.
The movie I watched today was the 2011 Sundance Film Festival best picture Like Crazy. It follows the story of a couple, Jacob and Anna, played by American actor Anton Yelchin and English actress Felicity Jones. From that introduction, I think you have an idea what kind of movie this is. The story shows how the couple meet up in college, and how they dealt with Anna’s student visa expiring after graduation. We see the ups and downs of their relationship and see how their youth affect their decisions. The supporting cast were made of Alex Kingston and 2012 Academy Award Best Actress Jennifer Lawrence. My inner fanboy cried a little seeing how Jennifer Lawrence was treated in this movie and being just a supporting actress. In the movie, there were basically two conflicting ideas clouding their relationship.
The first major thing the movie wanted to show was the immaturity of the youth. If they just used their heads from the start, there wouldn’t even be a need for a movie. When Anna had the choice to return home their final summer to renew her American visa, she could’ve taken it instead of staying of making love with Jacob the entire summer. From that one decision, she got deported and the whole relationship was put in jeopardy. Then they make rash decisions of moving to where the other is, thinking everything would be a fairy tale. They even get married because they thought they would last forever. Then the moment when things go rough, they pack their bags and leave. They try to date other people, only to realize that they still want each other. So they had to fool around with other people for months (he played with Jennifer Lawrence TWICE, raise your pitchforks!), and leave them the moment someone missed someone. Then when things go rough, they pack their bags and leave again. It portrays the lack of understanding of commitment from the youth. That’s not how a mature relationship goes. You can’t just leave your spouse, just because his/her ex texts her. Love involves a decision, and commitment means sticking to that decision.
But it’s not enough to just look at it from that perspective. Other people would see the movie as: “…if you’re not gonna be happy with someone, why stay?” So it then becomes a question for the heart. At some point, it makes sense too. Why stick to a decision that will make you sad in the long run? I’m sure a lot of couples nowadays would change how they lived their lives if they had a chance to because they aren’t really happy. On one side, Jacob and Anna were newlygrads so they were still young. I guess that’s what people mean when they say “you’re too young to get married” because you might regret it. I’m sure a lot of people stuck in bad relationships often fantasize how life would be if they were single. Maybe that’s what happened with them. The moment the tough times rolled in, they figured out they could be happy somewhere else and with somebody else. Looking at the bigger picture, it seems cruel and heartless for them to do this. But in an individualistic culture like America, it’s a little more understandable. From this angle, you can’t really blame them. Because you can’t really blame anyone for wanting to be happy, as long as it’s not against the law. If situation A is starting to make you miserable, and situation B could possibly make you happy, then I can understand why people go for choice B.
Viewers of Like Crazy experience a clash between these two ideals, making you question the eternal battle between mind versus heart. The movie doesn’t really answer it, I think they just pose the question to the audience, or I fail to get the message. But honestly, it kinda moved away from that by the end of the movie. The whole focus just remained at their back-and-forth relationship throughout the movie. At first it was sweet they wanted each other so bad. But after a few break-ups and make-ups, it gets annoying. How many times do couples have to try to figure out their relationship is not working out? The title was Like Crazy right? You’d think it was about the two being crazy about each other. But after watching this movie, the only crazy person was me for having witnessed over an hour of a terrible, can’t-make-up-their-minds relationship. You can go check it out if you want. Maybe you’d learn a lesson or two about what being in a mature adult should not be like.
One Movie A Day 