Film Review | 'Like Crazy'

Like Crazy
Directed by Drake Doremus
Starring -- Felicity Jones, Anton Yelchin, Jennifer Lawrence, Alex Kingston
Paramount
Five stars | A+




Like Crazy is the story of Jacob (Anton Yelchin), an American boy in love with the art of creation, and Anna (Felicity Jones), an English girl studying in the States, who falls in love with the art of love; the single art that Anna knows she does not understand fully, but only the "smudge" of it.
Jacob and Anna meet in class, and Anna pursues the relationship first. The two date for a year, and the film perfectly portrays the freshness and the life in their first year together; their walks on the beach, their strolls down the street, but this is all a result of Anna's choice to violate her Visa and stay a summer with Jacob. After returning to her home country, Anna is sent back to the UK by the TSA as a result of the aforementioned issue, and she and Jacob enter a phase of "starting and stopping," something Anna says that they can't do, but it turns out...that's all they really do. In the meanwhile, Jacob dates a woman named Sam (Jennifer Lawrence), who, at first, remains blissfully oblivious to the lingering sense of desperation that Jacob has regarding his feelings for both Sam and Anna, who is back in London. Sam's character narrowly beats Anna's as the most heart-wrenching of all; you know, just by the sense of Lawrence's expressions, that she deeply loves Jacob, and you also know that he can't seem to ever let go of Anna's ghostly presence in his life. She acknowledges this fact, especially one night when Anna calls to deliver Jacob the news that they should marry. Jacob obliges, and he treks to the UK to wed Anna. But something stands in the way of a full registration of the couple's marriage license; Anna's violation of her Visa. The two of them separate once more, and Jacob returns to Sam, whilst Anna dates a friend called Simon (Charlie Bewley). In an attempt to take their relationship farther, Simon proposes to Anna one night at dinner with her parents (wonderfully portrayed by the ever-amazing Alex Kingston and Oliver Muerhead), but Anna declines and the relationship fails, as does Jacob's and Sam's, which ends with a shot of Sam packing her things and leaving Jacob's home, a look of pain on her face, one not unlike the tear-inducing scene earlier wherein she cries into Jacob's shoulder. Anna and Jacob move back in together, and the awkwardness lingers for a while, ending the film with the two in the shower--shots of their memories bringing the motion picture to a close.
I cannot place my emotions for this film into a completely coherent sentence--at least, I don't think I can. Immediately during my viewing of this film, I knew it would reserve a spot in my heart. At the beginning of the film, I thought, "God, I want that relationship," but by the end of the film, I thought, "Man, I do NOT want that relationship." The tragic realism of these characters and their situation is striking to the heart, and I just hate that I love how horrible I feel for them; the fact that they can't get over each other and that they result to leaving one another and then coming back. It truly is awful.
The acting in this film, though, is three levels above splendidly superb. It's no surprise that my three favorite performances were by the three main females, now is it? Alex Kingston, Jennifer Lawrence, and Felicity Jones play three totally different characters, but they all really fuse into emotionally dense characters whose lives are really flipped upside-down. I've already mentioned Lawrence's character, but it truly is beautiful the way Jennifer Lawrence can portray a character. I mean she's got Katniss--the brave heroine, Elissa in House at the End of the Street--the horrified victim, Mystique--the sexy Switzerland, Ree--the pursuant daughter, and now Sam--the heartbroken woman. Something always seems to be unique about each one of her characters, but this one was just a raw human being, which I adored. I commend Jennifer Lawrence for that. Alex Kingston was the character that the story would have crumbled without--at least, in my opinion. She was the supportive, hilarious, and cautious woman who Alex Kingston really was tremendous as. As for Felicity Jones, there isn't much to say. Her character, and her performance, speaks for herself. The rest of the cast--Yelchin, Muerhead, and Bewley--were all wondrous in their own respects.
Everything else was just the icing on the cake--the subtly brilliant cinematography, the score, the soundtrack, and the usage of sets and locations as their own characters. London was truly the center of emotional disaster, and Los Angeles was its rebuild.
This film should go down in history as one of the most tragically beautiful romances in film's existence. Truly lovely.

Film Review | 'The Hunger Games'

The Hunger Games

Directed by Gary Ross

Starring Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Elizabeth Banks, Woody Harrelson

Run time: 2h 22m

Distributed by Lionsgate

Rating: 5 stars (A+)

The Hunger Games is the one film I’ve been waiting three years to see now. I mean, sure there were the final Potter films, and I did wait for those, but the anticipation was entirely different for these two franchises. For Potter, it was definitely more of a sentimental thing for the films to come out, and as wondrous as the acting is in the films, I always valued the story much more than I did the people who represented it. It’s tough for me to admit this, but I think having that closure nearly a year after the final film definitely helps, as well as the release of the first film in The Hunger Games. Looking back, I am able to openly point out flaws in the acting and in the adaptations made from the books to the films, and while I will always value Harry Potter more than anything, I think that The Hunger Games is a wholly better adaptation, and a wholly better film.

The acting spotlight in this film is definitely shed on Jennifer Lawrence, whose performance as the world-renowned heroine in the oppressing Panem trumps over all over actors in the film. This is probably a result of the fact that Lawrence’s character is the one seen most in the film. She provides a sense of irresistible courage balanced with a sense of haughtiness, something I wasn’t necessarily expecting, but that I definitely loved. I think the second-best acting job comes from either Woody Harrelson as Haymitch Abernathy, Katniss and Peeta’s mentor, or Stanley Tucci as Caesar Flickerman, the Capitol-based talk-show host whose character plays a much more expanded and important role in the film than in the first novel. I read many reviews prior to the official release of the film stating that Harrelson didn’t portray Haymitch as drunk or funny as he was in the book, but I totally disagree. Harrelson’s performance definitely deserves an Academy-Award nomination for its honesty, its complexity, and its hilarity. Tucci just wowed every single person who saw the film, cracking a laugh out of the audience just with his charm and his facial expressions. There always is just something about Stanley Tucci that wins an audience over. My personal favorite character in the series’ entirety is Effie Trinket. Effie was portrayed by Elizabeth Banks, who took Effie’s mannerisms and eccentricities and built upon them in a major, yet surprisingly subtly hidden, way. Effie is perhaps the most frighteningly ignorant character in the series, building a false sense of hope (“Contain it”) at the Reaping, as well as trying so hard to cheer up the Tributes when they arrive at the Capitol (“I don’t think they get dessert. But you do.”). Banks and Harrelson perfectly portray the animosity between their respective characters as present in the novel, and Effie is always irritated when Haymitch is around (“That is mahogany!”). The Tributes, portrayed notably by Leven Rambin, Jack Quaid, Alexander Ludwig, the chilling Isabelle Fuhrman, Jacqueline Emerson, Amandla Stenberg, and Dayo Okeniyi, were all their own characters, something I was worried they wouldn’t be. I liked the romantic build-up between Glimmer and Cato, seeing as they’re both attractive people, as well as immensely strong and powerful. I thought Foxface’s appearance was downsized a bit too much to the point where a non-reader wouldn’t know the threat she posed (she wasn’t brutal, but she was stealthy). Amandla Stenberg, as well as Willow Shields as Prim, delivered a heart-wrenching performance as Rue, Katniss’s ally during the Games. Her death scene truly was painful. And of course, I could not have gone through this film review without mentioning the stylists, most importantly Cinna. Lenny Kravitz’s performance was astoundingly intimate and phenomenal, maintaining the ambiguity of his character as well as providing a sense of adoration and admiration. Truly superb acting from all, really.

As far as direction and adaptations go, Gary Ross was a great director for this film. The cinematography, the screenplay, the set design, everything was just so similar to the way they were in the novel, and none of that could be so without such an amazing director. Lionsgate made the right decision bestowing this tale unto the hands of Gary Ross, and it truly shows. As for book-to-film translations, I believe this film is the most accurate that I have seen in my life. More on omissions and inclusions in the spoiler filled part of this review, appearing below.