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Editor's Note: As a special treat for our London Film Festival coverage, I asked our correspondents Craig and David to share conversations about the movies that they happen to see together. Today, LIKE CRAZY and the Oscar buzz baffles them...
Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones are lovers in and out of it in "Like Crazy"
David: I think the first thing we should probably note about Like Crazy is how, well, un-crazy it is. 'Like Cute' would be a more fitting, if rather more nauseating, title. Perhaps I've just grown too cynical, but I don't think that's it. A piece of furniture tells us they love each other 'like crazy', but they don't. One of the few scenes I'd pick out was just after Anna (Felicity Jones) has introduced Jacob (Anton Yelchin) to her parents - they start kissing like mad, and for those few seconds I felt the heat between them, the flush of a youthful romance. But there wasn't nearly enough of that to establish the connection we're supposed to feel throughout the whole film.
Craig: I think the cuteness of the pairing was the thing director Drake Doremus seemed to want to eagerly translate the most, what with all the chair inscriptions and diary notes. (Clearly that chair wanted to be Like Crazy’s “Rosebud”.) Haven’t we seen this kind of meet-cute cinematic dalliance before, in things like Garden State, Elizabethtown etc? I was over quirk-filled romanticised moping the moment it began. Here it comes with a slightly dourer and artfully managed sense of itself – like a mini-me Blue Valentine... The Formative Years, yet without that film’s tender baggage.
Humor, Jennifer Lawrence, Oscar buzz, after the jump...