Felicity Jones is "like crazy" for sex with Anton Yelchin.
One of last year's modest indie hits, Like Crazy, hit DVD and Blu-Ray yesterday and it makes for an interesting comparison piece with the gay indie Weekend which you've undoubtedly seen (thrice?) by now. Like Crazy is about two college kids Jacob (Anton Yelchin) and Anna (Felicity Jones) in California who fall crazy in love after basically one date shortly before graduation. The catch is that she (Felicity Jones) is from England and her student visa is about to expire. She violates her visa for the noble purpose of lots of sex with her dishevelled hottie boyfriend. When she flies back to England for a wedding things get much more complicated.
In both movies two young lovers fall hard for each other with the ocean threatening to separate them. In both movies the actors nail very specific beats like this one here at the tail end of Like Crazy's first date. Anna is reading some of her precocious poetry to Jacob. Yelchin does the best 'sleepy/horny trying to pay attention to his date's ramblings instead of fantasizing about impending nakedness' face you may have ever seen in the movies. (Not sure how marketable that is as an acting skill but...well done, Anton!)
So why does Weekend resonate so much and Like Crazy only in fits and starts?
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It doesn't matter if you're gay or straight watching them because movie love is pansexual. Gay people have been able to project themselves on to big screen hetero romances since time began (and eventually straight people will be able to do the reverse). My best guess in the difference of profound feeling is that Weekend is super-specific, inviting us into the intimacy, both sexually and conversationally like an invisible third lover while Like Crazy opts for shorthand and montage (like an entire summer shown in still flashcuts of the couple in bed) to signify "Falling in Love" rather than inviting us to do it in real time.
Of course to watch it now you may feel that Anton Yelchin is only this romantically tortured because he has to keep letting his other girl Jennifer Lawrence go. Her superstardom is just around the corner with Hunger Games (opening March 23rd). What horrible timing to lose her now!
Nathaniel Rogers would live in the movie theater but for the poor internet reception. He blogs daily at the Film Experience. Follow him on Twitter @nathanielr.