Charlie Brewley – Through the Shattered Lens

Today, Lis and I continued to rewatch the Twilight movies on Netflix.

New Moon was the second part of the Twilight Saga. Because people in town are starting to notice that he hasn’t aged in ten years, Carlisle (Peter Facinelli) decides that the Cullens need to move to a new location. Edward explains to Bella that the worst thing a vampire can do is allow humans to discover that they exist. Edward also says that Bella can’t come with the Cullens because it would raise suspicion and it would also put Bella in danger, since even the members of his family are tempted to drink her blood. Bella says, “Change me!” and Edward says not unless they’re married.

The Cullens leave and Bella has a breakdown, and even her father wants to send her back to Florida to live with her mother. Finally, Bella starts hanging out with Jacob (Taylor Lautner), a member of the Quileute Tribe who is also revealed to be a werewolf. Werewolves and vampires hate each other, but the Forks werewolves had arranged a truce with the Cullens where they wouldn’t attack them as long as the Cullens didn’t bite any humans. If Edward had changed Bella, the truce would have been canceled and the werewolves would have had to attack Bella.

When Alice (Ashley Greene) misinterprets a vision of the future and thinks that Bella is dead, Edward leaves wherever it is he’s living and goes to Italy to ask the ruling vampire council to destroy him. Even though Jacob’s in love with her, Bella goes to Italy to try to save Edward’s life.

I remember really liking New Moon when I saw it because I was in a long-distance relationship and I could relate to what Bella was going through. When we rewatched it, I had forgotten how long the movie was and how little actually happens until Bella goes to Italy, which doesn’t even happen until the movie’s nearly over. The other thing I forgot about this one was that they really overdid the vampire makeup on Robert Pattinson at the start of the movie. He was so pale and wearing so much lipstick that everyone should have been able to figure out that he was a vampire just by looking at him.

When this movie came out, everyone was either Team Jacob or Team Edward. I was Team Edward because, again, I was in a long-distance relationship. But rewatching it, I realized that I should have been Team Jacob because he really was nicer to Bella and he wasn’t constantly sulking about everything like Edward. Jacob came with a lot less baggage and he was part of that tribe where you’re apparently not allowed to wear a shirt. No one in the tribe wore a shirt and they all looked like models. They probably all were models. This movie knew what we wanted to see.

I still enjoyed rewatching the movie. The men were all sexy and brooding. Anna Kendrick was funny. Dakota Fanning had red eyes and sent psychic pain waves. Bella said, “Change me,” and Edward looked tortured. It wasn’t as good as I remembered and it probably could have been cut down to 30 minutes without really losing much of the plot but it’s Twilight. If you know, you know.

Now, we’re moving on to Eclipse.

Like Crazy tells the story of Anna (Felicity Jones) and Jacob (Anton Yelchin), two college students who start dating as graduation nears and eventually come to discover that they love each other “like crazy.” Unfortunately, U.S. immigration officials don’t care how much they love each other and when the British Anna overstays on her visa, she is promptly sent back home and told that she cannot reenter the U.S. While Anna continues to pursue her literary career in England, Jacob runs a succesful design business in America. Anna and Jacob struggle to maintain their long distance relationship, even while both of them are tempted by others (played quite well by Jennifer Lawrence and Charlie Brewley, both of whom give nuanced performances that make their characters into more than just romantic complications).

While the plot might sound like the formula for your standard romcom, Like Crazy is actually a surprisingly mature and realistic film that also manages to be gloriously romantic and just a little sad (yes, Lisa cried a lot). You really come to care about not only about Jacob and Anna but you also come to feel less like your watching a movie and instead like you’re literally eavesdropping on real life. This is director Drake Doremus’s third film and his work here is almost like a blue print of how to make a film like this work. When the film starts, his hand-held cameras is jittery and nervous, reflecting the rush of hope and fear that we all feel at the beginning of a new relationship. As the film progresses, Doremus’s camera also calms down and it makes it impossible for us to look away, even when it almost feels as if we’ve intruded too far on the lives and feelings of our two lovers.

Doremus is helped by the fact that his two lovers are perfectly cast and totally believable and likable delivering dialogue that was reportedly improvised during filming. I’ve seen Anton Yelchin in a few films but this is the first time that he ever truly impressed me as an actor. One need only compare his vulnerable performance here to his more showy (and less effective) performance in The Beaver to see just how much Yelchin benefits from the improvised nature of Doremus’s film. As Anna, Felicity Jones proves that a previously unknown actress doesn’t need a gimmick (like a dragon tattoo) to give a breakthrough performance. Yelchin and Jones have a very real chemistry and you sincerely care about them.

The end result is a wonderful film that deserves to be seen. Like Crazy was one of the best films of 2011 and it’s a shame that it’s being overshadowed a bit by the bigger, more traditional films that have been released at the end of the year.