Like Crazy

A British college student falls for an American student, only to be separated from him when she's banned from the U.S. after overstaying her visa.

Like Crazy is a film from and about the heart. Jacob, an American, and Anna, who is British, meet at college in Los Angeles and fall madly in love. It’s the purest kind of romance – they’re each other’s first significant attachment. When Anna returns to London, the couple is forced into a long-distance relationship. Their perfect love is tested, and youth, trust, and geography become their biggest enemies. Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones star as the young couple. An original, contemplative look at first love, Like Crazy strikes a universal chord as it explores the bittersweet beauty and impermanence of relationships.
Release dateOctober 28, 2011
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Anna (Felicity Jones) notices Jacob (Anton Yelchin) in one of her college classes in Los Angeles. In a move worthy only of her youth, she scribbles a love poem and leaves it on his car. The pair soon catapults into that most potent brand of romance: naïve, pure and possibly fleeting.

Programmer's Note

She’s English, he’s American — but for now they’re both squatting in the land of the smitten. In this savvy take on star-crossed love, the obstacle comes not in the form of feuding families or untimely death, but the more contemporary challenges of geography and immigration papers. While Drake Doremus offered up goofball road-trip romance in his 2010 comedy Douchebag, he now turns his virtuoso eye to the dramatic.Like Crazy is an astute and sharply honest glimpse at one turbulent ocean-spanning relationship.

Anna (Felicity Jones) notices Jacob (Anton Yelchin) in one of her college classes in Los Angeles. In a move worthy only of her youth, she scribbles a love poem and leaves it on his car. The pair is soon catapulted into that most potent brand of romance: naïve, pure and possibly fleeting. When Anna is deported back to England after overstaying her visa, the couple reckons with the inadequacies of text messaging, rival lovers and the cruel realities of a distance that starts out physical but becomes, over time, emotional.

The actors improvised all of the dialogue — Doremus’ mother was a founding member of The Groundlings, so improv is in his genes — adding a visceral naturalism to the film’s affective punch. Jones and Yelchin perfectly capture the can’t-get-enough-of-each-other bliss of young love, conveying both the sweetness and vulnerability of twentysomething courtship. As Jacob’s convenient distraction, Jennifer Lawrence (nominated for an Academy Award® for Winter’s Bone last year) is a smoky counterpoint to Jones’ bright-eyed Anna.

This perceptive account of first-time heartbreak is often painful but never cynical. Shot on a Canon HD still camera, Like Crazy’s lo-fi visual sensibility enhances the high-impact resonance of Anna and Jacob’s very recognizable story. Doremus’ lens magnifies the often fitful process of realizing it isn’t meant to be. We may idealize our first love, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t real.
Cameron Bailey
Director's Bio

Drake Doremus attended the American Film Institute in Los Angeles. He has directed the feature films Spooner (09), Douchebag (10) and Like Crazy (11).