Last night I went along to the media premiere of “Like Crazy”.
A day later, I realise that I really enjoyed the film.

First of all – the basic details.

Like Crazy was directed by Drake Doremus and written by Drake Doremus and Ben York Jones.
It is due for release in February 2012 however it has already won Best Picture and Best Actress at the Sundance Film Festival.
It stars Felicity Jones (Anna) and Anton Yelchin (Jacob) – as well as Jennifer Lawrence (Samantha) and a has a lovely appearance by Alex Kingston (Dr. Elizabeth Corday from ER) as Anna’s mother.

Watching it, I spun through several feelings which I will try and explain without giving anything away.
The film starts off quite sweet and the cinematography is beautiful but I can’t help comparing the two of them and their coupling and pensive looks to Edward and Bella from Twilight. I hoped it would get better (or at least the story might speed up a little).

Anna and Jacob meet at college, fall head over heels in love after Anna shyly leaves a message on the windscreen of Jacob’s car.
They seem to spend every moment together, devouring each other (without getting naked) physically and mentally and emotionally.

Before I knew it, we had hit one of the defining moments of the film and I was cheering on the inside for love’s young things having the chance to stay together and see where this love would take them.
I’ll quietly admit I am a bit of a romantic and I was thrilled to have rebellion added to romance.

I read that Felicity and Anton were given an outline by Doremus and York Jones and they improvised some of their dialogue.
The scenes didn’t feel terribly scripted in that neither actor seemed to be reaching too hard for an emotion or an expression that they couldn’t quite grasp.

There are also one or two awkward scenes that had the theatre chatting, giggling and gasping – all adding to the intense realism of the relationship.

Jacob and Anna’s relationship is not perfect by any means which ensures that the film doesn’t build up and then crash, instead we are pulled along a rollercoaster of their emotions and our reactions to them.

When English Anna cannot return the United States to be with Jacob again, both see other people.
There are key “other” people for both of them but Jacob’s relationship with Samantha seems more real as he appears more committed.  Anna’s relationship with Simon appears flirty and light but then Simon thinks there is a lot more to them than Anna does.

The final scene really sums up a key part of life for me … it might be worth it in the end, it might not.  But if we don’t give it a go, what could we miss out on?