Butler's Cinema Scene

Anton Yelchin, Felicity Jones

“LIKE CRAZY” My rating: B- 

90 minutes | MPAA rating: PG-13

A great screen romance makes those of us in the audience feel that we’re falling in love, too.

By that criteria “Like Crazy” is a just-OK romance that dishes up two hugely attractive young performers, a frustrating dilemma and a big question mark of an ending that is a lot more honest about love than 99 percent of the romance movies you’ve ever encountered.

That was enough for Sundance audiences, who gave the film top jury honors and laid a best actress award on newcomer Felicity Jones.

Well, I can certainly get behind the green-eyed, rosebud-lipped Jones. But I’m not nearly so enthusiastic about Drake Doremus’ film. It’s fun while its young protagonists are falling in love. And then they started acting stupid and much of my sympathy waved bye-bye.

Jacob (Anton Yelchin, Chekov on the last “Star Trek” flick) is a graduate assistant in a college class being taken by British student Anna (Jones). She leaves him a note suggesting they should get together. Having no fear of stalkers, he agrees. After a couple of dates they’re an item.

Problem: Anna’s student visa expires with the semester. She’s required to return to the UK for the summer, but decides not to. Love is more important.

Doremus gives us a lovely fast-cut montage of Jacob and Anna entwined in each other’s arms on their bed…it marks the passage of time and the deepening of their relationship. Nice bit of cinematic shorthand.

Finally Anna does go back home for a brief visit. But when she tries to return to the U.S. she’s stopped by customs at the airport.

Turns out pissing off the INS is not such a smart move. Without even embracing her loving Jacob, Anna is flown back to London.

Can a long-distance romance survive?  (Jacob must do all the traveling, since Anna can’t get into the States until the wheels of immigration have ground fine…and that could take years).

Of course a body can get lonely after all that time apart, and we can hardly blame Jacob (he designs furniture)  for taking up with a beautiful co-worker (Jennifer Lawrence) or Anna (who has landed a gig with a London magazine) for getting down with the decent bloke (Charlie Bewley) from the next apartment.

Problem is, Lawrence and Bewley are like the no-name extras who flesh out an away team on “Star Trek.”  You know they’re only on screen to be eaten by the monster.

Yelchin and Jones are such attractive, endearing, watchable young performers that for a while you can ignore the nagging little voice in your head that says their characters are actually kind of boring.

Far more interesting are Alex Kingston and Oliver Muirhead as Anna’s parents, who are funny and empathetic and mildly eccentric in ways that make the young lovers look like real duds.

Now that’s love.

| Robert W. Butler