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Generally favorable reviews - based on 37 Critics What's this?

User Score

Generally favorable reviews- based on 67 Ratings

  • Summary: A love story is both a physical and emotional tale, one that can be deeply personal and heartbreaking for an audience to experience. Director Drake Doremus' film Like Crazy beautifully illustrates how your first real love is as thrilling and blissful as it is devastating. When a British college student falls for her American classmate they embark on a passionate and life-changing journey only to be separated when she violates the terms of her visa.Like Crazy explores how a couple faces the real challenges of being together and of being apart. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Picture at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and of the Special Jury Prize for Best Actress for Felicity Jones, Like Crazy depicts both the hopefulness and the heartbreak of love. (Paramount Vantage) Expand
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 29 out of 37
  2. Negative: 1 out of 37
  1. Reviewed by: Mick LaSalle
    Nov 3, 2011
    100
    The actors keep their clothes on, but everything else is naked in Like Crazy, a romantic drama that makes other romantic films look obvious and calculated in comparison.
  2. Reviewed by: Liz Beardsworth
    Jan 30, 2012
    80
    Felicity Jones shines in Drake Doremus' deceptively simple romance, a refreshing take on an age-old dilemma.
  3. Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    Oct 28, 2011
    60
    The trailer for Like Crazy is one of the best of the year, and I couldn't wait to see the movie that inspired it. Turns out, the film itself plays like one long trailer, a collection of moments and montages that hint at, but never quite achieve, a fully realized whole.
  4. Reviewed by: Ray Greene
    Oct 22, 2011
    30
    A surprising follow-up to Doremus' low-fi but equally concept-driven 2010 Sundance feature "Douchebag," Like Crazy has appealing performances, a notable tone of realism in the acting and so many borrowed mannerisms from better or more interesting films it feels like a YouTube mash-up made by a Wes Anderson junkie who's studying Sophia Coppola movies while writing a term paper on "Garden State."

See all 37 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 17 out of 23
  2. Negative: 2 out of 23
  1. 10
    Many of us dream of that one true love. That perfect match out there in the world. The love that will engulf our soul from the moment we find it and never let go.

    In 'Like Crazy,' we experience that love in the relationship shared by the handsome Jacob (Anton Yelchin) and bright eyed Anna (Felicity Jones). A love that develops in such an intoxicating fashion that the viewer feels as if they were falling head over heels in love themself.

    The young couple meets as college classmates in Los Angeles, living the best years of their lives in the bright California sun. The beautiful couple's journey begins through one of the most romantic forms of courtship, a poem from Anna left on Jacob's windshield, and spins into a whirlwind of unadulterated love. A whirlwind of love that fails to cease until the UK born Anna overstays her student visa, creating an immigration hurdle that becomes difficult to overcome.

    From this moment on, 'Like Crazy' separates itself from the relationship dramas of recent years. This separation comes from director and writer Drake Doremus' choice to draw from personal experiences with love, instead of creating the predictable and expected "fairy tale" love story.

    In the real world, love experiences many hardships like the distance between the couple, the maturity of the couple, and every person's need for affection. Doremus hits on each of these hardships and more, creating a sense of realism unmatched by any relationship drama today. This sense of realism helps create an engrossing attachment to the couple, their story, and the ability for the viewer to relate to the couple's plight.

    A largely ad-libbed script aides that realism. The improvisation allows the couple's dialogue and physical interactions, as well as those with their other lovers while away from each other, to appear as authentic as possible. Through these authentic interactions, Jones and Yelchin develop undeniable chemistry that just further establishes the genuineness of the relationship.

    Through impeccable acting, brilliant directing and an unequaled authenticity, 'Like Crazy' becomes a love story that will live on for generations to come.

    Alex White
    Collapse
  2. A breath of fresh air that strays away from the cliche romance film we are so used to. Post college love is tested to the brink as the intensity and passion expands. The on screen chemistry between Yelchin and Jones is superb. The realistic scenes and emotions are felt from start to finish. The climatic ending only adds to the awe of this inspiring movie Expand
  3. Early word from Sundance last January pegged Like Crazy as this years Blue Valentine largely due to its non-conventional and realistic approach at depicting on screen romance. While it's become refreshing to see film work against convention, Like Crazy struggles to maintain a convincing narrative which makes it hard to empathize with these characters. The film isn't without its charm. Felicity Jones shines throughout and is strong enough to recommend on that basis alone. I can't help but feel if the film was at the helm of a different director that it would of translated better on screen and created a stronger emotional impact by its "open-ending" conclusion. Expand
  4. This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Never felt any passion, I didn't root for them and what's up with the ending? They both realized they lost what they had? they will live in misery for the rest of their lives? Any remorse for screwing up others, more than once? If it smoldered, if I cried with them, if I felt anything, I would forgive them. But alas....just a mostly arid, depiction of love built, love tested, love teetering, love lost.
    Some nice editing, a flash here and there,not quite poor, but close (C-).
    Expand

See all 23 User Reviews

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