Now that 2011 is finally over, we here at the Shattered Lens can finally get around to listing our individual picks for the best and worst of 2011. Pantsukadasai, Necromoonyeti, Leon Th3 Duke, and Dazzling Erin have already posted some of their picks for the best of 2011 and over the next five days, I’ll be risking your scorn by listing some of my own choices.
I’d like to get things started today by listening my picks for the 16 worst films of 2011. As always, these choices are mine and mine alone. So, don’t go harassing Arleigh just because you think Another Earth wasn’t a pretentious and silly film. Instead, harass me so I can harass you back. 🙂
16) Battle L.A. — It takes a special type of film to make Skyline look like a work of art.
15) Cowboys and Aliens — Meh. This should have been so much more fun than it actually was.
13) Shark Night 3-D — Another film that should have been a lot more fun.
12) Season of the Witch — The first film I saw in 2011 was also one of the worst.
11) The Ides of March — Hey guys, did you know that politics is a dirty business!? Oh my God, consider my fragile mind blown. Thank you for clearing things up, George Clooney!
10) Another Earth — Honestly, Another Earth probably wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the way that so many of the toadsuckers out there get so superior and condescending whenever they’re telling me that I should love this movie. If you read the comments under my linked review of the film, you’ll find a very good defence of the film from Leon and then you’ll find a more typical response from some idiot named Naresh Raj Shrestha. Unfortunately, Naresh seems to be a fair representation of most of the people who take to the Internet to defend this film. All I can say to those people is “Fuck off, kids. I’ve got real movies to worry about.”
Last night, I watched, via Uverse OnDemand, one of my favorite movies of 2011 — Bridesmaids.
Why Was I Watching It?
Why!? Because it’s just like one of my favorite movies of all time! Seriously, I love Bridesmaids.
What’s It About?
To put it simply, this is a movie about a bunch of bridesmaids but really, it’s so much more. Annie (Kristen Wiig) is struggling to get over the loss of her bakery and trying to find some sort of happiness in a purely sexual relationship with married Ted (Jon Hamm, at his sleaziest) when her best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) announces that she’s getting married. She asks Annie to be her maid-of-honor but Annie quickly finds herself locked in competition with Lillian’s other friend, the rich and snobby Helen (Rose Byrne) as well as in a tentative romance with Nathan (Chris O’Dowd, who is so cute and adorable here), who is a traffic cop but he’s also Irish so he can be forgiven.
What Worked?
Okay, so when Bridesmaids came out this summer it was advertised as being a “gross out comedy” for girls but it’s so much more. I mean, I’m not a huge fan of gross out comedy, like not at all. But I love this movie. The film is full of great (but honest) dialogue and features some of the best ensembles of the year. Along with Byrne and Wiig, the bridesmaids include Wendy McClendon-Covey, Ellie Kemper, and Melissa McCarthy and they all get a chance to shine. Especially McCarthy, who plays the sister of the groom and who gets to deliver all of the crude, laugh-out-loud lines along with getting a great, semi-dramatic scene towards the end.
This is a very funny movie but, ultimately, it’s funny because its true. As Annie, Kristen Wiig is very funny and likable but ultimately, she’s a single woman struggling to maintain both her independence and her own sense of self-worth in a world that seems to exist just to judge, a struggle that leads her to live a little too vicariously through her best friend and try to justify being the lesser half in a degrading relationship. And you know what? We’ve all been there. I know I have. And, when you find yourself in that type of prison, sometimes you just have to laugh to keep from going crazy.
There are so many laugh-out-loud moments in this film that I don’t even know where to begin in picking out my favorites. However, a few obvious highlights: the ill-fated trip to try on bridesmaid dresses and the equally ill-fated flight to Vegas. I also have to give major kudos to the film’s opening, which is one of the few sex scenes ever to be found in a comedy that’s actually filmed from the woman’s point of view.
Finally, the film features Jill Clayburgh’s final film performance and she is hilarious. Thank you, Bridemaids, for coming out after Love and Other Drugs.
What Doesn’t Work?
Any time you have a comedy like this, there will occasionally be a one-liner that falls flat or a joke that doesn’t quite work and Bridesmaids has one or two of these. But the entire film is so likable that the jokes that don’t work are quickly forgotten.
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments:
Oh my God, so many! And it would probably be TMI for me to go into every single one of them but I will say that I’ve been a bridesmaid like five times and I was my sister Megan’s maid of honor though that was mostly because I cried until she agreed to give me the job. And I actually really enjoyed it every time, mostly because it meant I got to be up at the front of the church instead of stuck sitting all anonymous-like in the back and I could stand up there and be all like, “See, I even make this dress look good.”
The second time I was a bridesmaid, I kinda got everyone mad at me because I made this gagging motion when they were lighting the unity candle but seriously, I just think unity candles are all silly and Vermont-like. Plus, the marriage eventually ended in divorce like a year later so let’s hear it for me for being honest.
I was concerned before I saw Michel Hazanavicius’s critically acclaimed, silent film The Artist. This is the film that’s currently being touted as an Oscar front runner and has been acclaimed by critics the world over. Whenever I see this type of acclaim, I usually end up disappointed in the actual film because hype that positive is very difficult to live up to. (Case in point: The Descendants.) However, having seen The Artist, I can now say that this is the rare film that actually is almost as good as the critics say it is.
Starting out in a highly stylized Hollywood in the 1920s, The Artist introduces us to silent film star George Valentin (played Jean Dujardin who shows the same charm and style that he used to ironic effect in the director’s previous OSS 117 films). Valentin is the biggest star in the world and he is cheerfully dismissive of the idea of “talking” film. However, once the age of the talkies begins, Valentin finds his star on the descent while his protegé, former extra Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo), becomes a star in talking films. Defiantly, Valentin continues to make silent films but is there anybody around still willing to watch them? Obviously, the storyline of The Artist is a familiar one but the film is more about how Hazanavicius tells this story than the story itself. The Artist is ultimately a triumph in pure and exuberant style.
At first, I have to admit that I was a little bit dubious about The Artist being a silent film. It sounded rather ominously like a gimmick and I was worried that The Artist would turn out to be one of those films that I felt obligated to enjoy as opposed to actually enjoying. Having seen the film, I can say that it is indeed a gimmick but it’s that rare gimmick that actually works extremely and genuinely well. Director Hazanavicius both pays homage to the conventions of silent cinema while also contrasting them against the harsher reality of loneliness and depression.
Much like the best of the old silent actors, both Dujardin and Bejo have amazingly expressive faces and they can say as much with their eyes as they could say with dialogue. Familiar character actors like John Goodman, James Cromwell, and Malcolm McDowell are also perfectly cast and used throughout the film’s narrative. Ultimately, however, the film is really stolen by Uggie, who plays Dujardin’s little dog and is just about the most talented canine I’ve ever seen on-screen. Seriously, he was adorable (and I say this as someone who is terrified of dogs both big and small) and he gets a chance to shine in a compelling sequence where he desperately tries to save his master from a fire. Seriously, Uggie gives such a great performance that I was surprised to discover that he wasn’t actually Andy Serkis under heavy CGI.
Technically, of course, The Artist isn’t really a silent film. It has a very rich and expressive musical score and there are two scenes in which Hazanavicius allows a few sound effects to be heard. Only towards the end of the film do we get to hear anybody speak and its truly jarring in the best way possible. If nothing else, The Artist makes us realize how much we take for granted the blaring soundtracks of most films. We’re so used to hearing things that we’ve forgotten how to listen. Luckily, The Artist is here to remind us.
Sometimes, it seems like it’s easier for me to write about the films I dislike as opposed to the films that I truly love. Case in point: I had little trouble writing up my thoughts on Anonymous and Straw Dogs but it’s taken me 8 months to write a formal review of my favorite film of 2011: Joe Wright’s pulp fairy tale, Hanna.
Taking place in a world much like our own but definitely not the same, Hanna opens in the frozen wilderness of Finland where 16 year-old Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) lives in an isolated cabin with her father, Erik (Eric Bana). In the film’s electrifying opening montage, we see that Hanna’s life revolves around training for combat, memorizing the encyclopedia, and memorizing several “false” back stories that have been prepared for her by her father. It also quickly becomes apparent that Erik has never allowed his daughter to be exposed to the real world. Finally, Erik tells Hanna that she is “now ready” to choose whether or not to open up a box containing an old transmitter that well alert the rest of the world of their existence. When Hanna finally opens the box, Erik promptly disappears and Hanna is left to fend for herself.
It quickly becomes apparent why Erik has spent years training his daughter because, by opening the box, Hanna has given away her presence to a coolly corrupt and ruthless CIA agent named Marissa (Played by Cate Blanchett and one of the most compelling villains in recent film history). Marissa has her own reasons for wanting both Erik and Hanna and she quickly sends a team to Erik’s cabin. Hanna is captured and transported to a memorably sterile CIA safehouse. In a shocking sudden burst of violence, Hanna escapes from the safehouse and finds herself having to survive in the “real world” while being pursued by Marissa.
Hanna, Marissa, and Erik eventually meet their fates in a desolate theme park that (in a neat bit of symbolism) is dedicated to the Brothers Grimm. Along the way, Hanna meets and travels with a likable family of English tourists, allowing her to have her first chance to actually experience a “normal” life and Marissa recruits Issacs, one of the creepiest film henchmen ever. Seriously. Isaacs is played by Tom Hollander and he was just so exquisitely sleazy that my skin crawled just watching him on-screen.
In many ways, Hanna may sound like a simple action film but, in the best tradition of the French new wave and the better grindhouse filmmakers, Joe Wright both embraces the conventions of the action film while unexpectedly subverting them and using them to tell a more universal story about the struggle to both establish and maintain identity in an increasingly soulless world. Much as Godard did before he gave up his artistic soul to political ideology, Joe Wright uses his cinematic talents to create a unique world that, while heavily stylized, also comments on our own existence. The Chemical Brothers, meanwhile, provide the perfect soundtrack to Wright’s pulp vision.
Hanna may be my favorite film of 2011 but it’s also the most underappreciated of the year, at least as far as Oscar season is concerned. There’s been so mention of the film’s score and a few critics’ groups have tossed a “young artist” mention or two at Saoirse Ronan but otherwise, the film has pretty much been ignored. I think part of the problem is that Hanna was released in April and not December. If the films had been released in December, I think Ronan would, at the very least, be a dark horse for best actress.
The main complaint that most critics seem to come up with when discussing Hanna is that the film is too much of a genre piece. Yes, it’s well-made and it’s well-acted and yes, it’s a compelling film with an intelligent script but, in the end, it’s just a genre piece. A fairly typical response comes from the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw who, after praising all of the film’s virtues, concluded with, “…(I)t ultimately squanders all of them, undone by a lack of subtlety and restraint.”
To this, I can only respond, “Oh? Really?” Seriously. Amazingly enough, some of the critics who criticized Hanna for a perceived lack of subtlety are the same critics who are now falling over themselves to praise the rehash of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. I suppose the difference here is that The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was directed by David Fincher and is the product of the American film establishment whereas Hanna was directed by Joe Wright and was produced by outsiders.
Those who claim that Hanna is too genre are missing the simple fact that Hanna is an insightful film that uses the conventions of the action genre as a metaphor for the sometime painful search for identity that every teenager (and especially every teenage girl) has ever had to go through. Myself, I never had to flee from government agents or battle assassins when I was 16 but I did have to start discovering how to survive in the real world, away from the security and comfort of home. As opposed to the pretend feminism of Fincher’s film, Hanna is a film that truly celebrates “girl power” and promotes independence and empowerment. It’s also, as far as I’m concerned, the best film of 2011.
David Fincher’s rehash of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo isn’t the only “feel bad movie of the holidays.” There’s also Young Adult, a rather dark comedy that reunites the director and screenwriter behind Juno, Jason Reitman and Diablo Cody.
Young Adult is the story of Mavis (played winningly by Charlize Theron), a former high school mean girl who has grown up to be a lonely, alcoholic ghost writer of young adult literature. Mavis is struggling to write her latest book when she gets an e-mail announcing that her former high school boyfriend Buddy (Patrick Wilson, who defines dreamy) is not only married but his wife has just given birth to their first child. Mavis does what we would all do if we found ourselves in similar circumstances: she promptly returns to her old hometown and plots to break up Buddy’s happy marriage*. (Or as Mavis puts it: “We can beat this thing.”)
Once she returns to her hometown, Mavis not only struggles to reconnect with Buddy but also runs into another former high school classmate, Matt (Patton Oswalt, who deserves every sort of award nomination that there is for his performance here). As opposed to Mavis, Matt was an outcast in high school who, during his senior year, was beaten and permanently crippled by a bunch of bullies who had decided that he was gay. Much as Mavis has won fame as a writer, Matt has won his own sort of fame as “the hate crime guy.” Despite themselves, Mavis and Matt start to bond over their own inability to move on with their lives past high school.
As you might guess from the plot synopsis above, Young Adult is a not a laugh-out-loud comedy. Instead, it’s a comedy of awkward moments and “Oh no, she didn’t!” moments. It’s not always an easy movie to recommend because Mavis is an apologetically unlikable character. However, as the film goes on, you can’t help but respect the fearless way that the film tackles a character that doesn’t really offer up much chance for a crowd-pleasing redemption. Obviously, for this to work, Charlize Theron has to give a brilliant performance in the lead role and she does. However, the film truly belongs to Patton Oswalt, who plays his role with a perfect combination of anger, self-pity, and sarcasm. He provides this film with its own fractured heart and we’re all better off for it.
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* Okay, technically, maybe not everybody would do that. But I would.
Last night, I watched a classic episode of the Office: Diversity Day!
Why Was I Watching It:
Down here in Dallas, they show reruns of The Office twice a day on Channel 27. I can literally say that I’ve probably seen every episode about 20 times at this point and now, if I’m home at night with nothing to do, I’m more likely to see what’s on LMN. However, Diversity Day remains like one of my favorite episodes of the Office ever so, when I saw it was going to be on, I had to watch it.
What Was It About:
As the show begins, we find ourselves in the familiar offices of Dunder Mifflin Scranton. However, things are slightly different from the office we force ourselves to watch today. Kelly Kapoor is dressed conservatively. Michael Scott, with his thinning hair slicked back, is still in the manager’s office and, as opposed to being a somewhat docile idiot manchild, is just kind of a jerk. Jim and Pam are still cute and flirty (and Pam is still dressing like someone who actually works in an office). Robert California is nowhere to be seen and, for that matter, neither is Andy Bernard. In fact, we manage to get through this entire episode without anyone breaking out into song. Dwight’s pretty much the same, though.
Basically, Michael has offended just about everyone in the office by performing the infamous “Chris Rock Routine.” Corporate has responded by sending down Mr. Brown (a hilarious Larry Wilmore) from Diversity Today who leads the entire office through “sensitivity training.” Naturally, Michael feels threatened by this and so he decides to form his own company (which he calls Diversity Tomorrow because “…(T)oday is almost over.”) and leads his own sensitivity training workshop. This, of course, leads to Michael eventually getting slapped by Kelly when Michael asks her if she wants to step into his convenience shop and sample his “cookie cookie.”
What Worked?
Yes, Diversity Day is old school Office, back when the show was both incredibly funny and achingly sad too. It was also the first episode to be broadcast after the pilot and it remains one of the best episode of the Office ever. Whenever I catch these old episode of The Office in syndication, I’m always surprised to discover just how sweet and oddly poignant these shows were. Michael is truly a bad boss, the characters are clearly coworkers as opposed to being friends, and there’s none of the silliness that has come to dominate the show after the third season. One reason why the relationship between Jim and Pam was so special in those early episodes is because its made clear that both of them would spend their entire workday miserable if not for the time they spend talking to each other.
I think the main difference between these old episodes and the new episodes is that, if someone had suggested everyone who works at Office spend the weekend together at a Garden Party during the first three seasons, no one would have shown up. That is perfectly epitomized in this episode as all the characters find themselves forced to interact in an awkward attempt to celebrate diversity and mutual respect. The show works because Michael is so hilariously clueless to the fact that most of his employees would just rather work until five and then go home.
(If this episode was made today, Andy would end up pulling out his guitar and leading everyone in a sing along.)
This episode is also full of wonderful little moments and an observant eye for the details that distinguish a good show from a great one. Among my favorite moments: Dwight’s explanation of what a hero truly is (and Mr. Brown’s patient response of, “You’re thinking of a superhero.”), Michael’s cheaply done Diversity Tomorrow Video, and Pam finally falling asleep on Jim’s shoulder.
What Didn’t Work:
The episode itself was about as perfect as perfect can be but as I watched it, it was hard for me not to think about how different The Office is today as compared to what it once was. And that’s all I’ll say about that.
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments:
I’ve always enjoyed talking about diversity training because it gives me an excuse to mention that I’m an Italian-Spanish-German-Irish American.
Lessons Learned:
Reruns are always better. Plus, if you are a racist, I will attack you with the north…
Last August, I saw a wonderful film called Higher Ground. Despite the fact that it had gotten a rapturous review in our local news paper, I was one of the only people in the theater. Higher Ground played for a week before leaving and it’s been rather ignored during Oscar season. And that’s a shame because I think that Higher Ground is one of the best films of 2011. It’s certainly one of my personal favorites.
Taking place over the course of several decade, Higher Ground follows Corinne (Vera Farmiga) as she goes from being married and pregnant at 18 to eventually following her husband into joining a commune of self-described “Jesus Freaks.” The commune, while being undeniably well-meaning, is also male-dominated and follows an extremely fundamentalist interpretation of the bible. The previously fiercely independent Corinne quickly settles in to being a compliant housewife with her social life being pretty much limited to hanging out with the other housewives in the commune. As the years progress, Corinne struggles to balance her own independence with her own religious beliefs until finally, she starts to both question her faith and the life she’s lived for the past 20 years.
For the most part, American cinema doesn’t have a very good track record when it comes to religious themes. Regardless of whether a film is pro-religion or anti-religion, the final result often times seems to be heavy-handed, simple-minded, and finally rather condescending. (I always roll my eyes whenever a white, Southern-accented preacher shows up in a movie because I know that he’s going to turn out to be a villain within the next 30 minutes). It’s very rare to find a film that treats religion and the issues of faith (and the lack of it) with anything resembling intelligence. Higher Ground is one of those rare films and, for the reason alone, it deserves to be seen. A typical and lesser film would have taken sides and would have given us a bunch of easy judgments and hissable villains. Higher Ground, however, is far too subtle and intelligent to give us any easy answers. In the end, its portrait of religion and faith is intriguingly ambiguous and one that forces the viewer to reconsider their own feelings as well.
Ultimately, Higher Ground is triumph for Vera Farmiga, who both stars and makes her directorial debut with this film. As both a director and a star, she contributes some very subtle work here and, as a result, the film almost takes you be surprise as you suddenly realize just how wrapped of you gotten in its story. Farmiga’s direction is so assured that she even gets away with a few showy fantasy sequences where Corinne reveals what’s going on behind her devout facade. It’s a triumphant directorial debut and I’m looking forward to seeing what Farmiga does in the future.
What did I watch last night? I watched A Friend of the Family, a 2007 film that shows up on the Lifetime Movie Network every couple of weeks.
Why Was I Watching It?
Ennui.
What Was It About?
Well, it’s yet another Canadian true crime, exploitation film that has found a second life on Lifetime. Newly weds Allison and Darrin (Laura Harris and Erik Johnson) move to a small town in Canada. Darrin befriends and goes into business with David (Kim Coates) and David is like so obviously a serial killer but Allison is the only one who notices. And then, when Allison attempts to let people know that David’s the one who has been killing all the blonde waitresses in town, everyone responds by saying that she’s the one who is being silly and emotional!
What Worked
It all worked! Well, okay, not all of it but enough of it worked that I had fun curling up on the couch and watching it. Laura Harris was a sympathetic heroine (and she played her character with just a hint of instability so you wondered sometimes if maybe she was just imagining it all), Kim Coates was creepy in that Kim Coates way, and Erik Johnson — Oh. My. God. So. Cute.
Add to that, I could relate to this film. Nobody believed me when I said the janitor in high school was a serial killer and I’m still pretty sure I was right about that.
What Didn’t Work?
You know what? It all worked, as far as I’m concerned.
“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments
There were several, most of them having to do with Alison’s struggle to get people to listen to what she was saying. Seriously, men need to lean how to shut up and listen when it comes to potential serial killers living next door.
Lessons Learned
The main lesson was the same one that’s taught by most Lifetime movies: If you ever think the guy next door might be obsessed with you and plotting to kill you, take the law in your own hands. Seriously, all the men in your life are worthless when it comes to these situations.
Earlier this month, Jeff and I saw the new film Shame. Shame has gotten a lot of attention because 1) it’s rated NC-17 and 2) it stars a frequently naked Michael Fassbender (or, as me and my girlfriends call it, “the Full Fassbender.”) I’m sure that some people out there will find Shame to be either too shocking or too disturbing or too explict for its own good but you know what? Those people are idiots. Shame is one of the best films of 2011.
(An extra benefit of Shame being rated NC-17 is that I was asked to show ID before I was allowed to enter the theater. Usually, this is where I would do one of my patented “Don’t Tell Me What I Can’t See!” rants but, honestly, I had just recently “celebrated” my birthday and being mistaken for 16 made my day.)
In Shame, Michael Fassbender plays a succesful, outwardly confident New Yorker named Brandon. Though the film never offers up a clinical diagnosis, Brandon is a sex addict who spends his time having anonymous sex with prostitutes, watching pornography on his computer, and apparently masturbating every chance he gets. We discover this via an opening montage which quickly establishes both the pattern of Brandon’s life and that sex for Brandon is more about maintaining order than getting any sort of pleasure. We watch as Brandon awkwardly flirts with an attractive co-worker and reluctantly goes out drinking with his boss and it quickly becomes obvious that Brandon is incapable of maintaining any sort of “real” relationship.
Eventually, Brandon’s life is disrupted when his self-destructive sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) shows up at his apartment and proceeds to move in with him. Though Sissy and Brandon are obviously close, it also becomes apparent that Sissy is everything that Brandon isn’t. Whereas Brandon is rigidly controlled and closed-off, Sissy is erratic and demanding. With Sissy’s arrival, Brandon quickly starts to spiral as his own behavior lurches out of his control, leading to one harrowing night that forces both Mulligan and Fassbender to confront who they are, each in their own individual way.
Obviously, for Shame to work, it has to strike a perfect balance. With this material, it’s very easy to go overboard and come up with something that feels histrionic and false. Fortunately, director Steve McQueen finds that perfect balance. McQueen mixes scenes of clinic observation with almost lyrical montages in a style that reminds one of some of David Cronenberg’s better film.
McQueen’s direction is matched by the performances of Michael Fassbender and Carey Mulligan. Playing the role of Brandon, Fassbender finds the perfect balance between self-loathing and narcissism and he makes blatant self-destruction both scary and compelling. It’s impossible to imagine this movie working with anyone but Fassbender in the lead role. He has more than enough talent and charisma to keep us watching even when we want to look away. (And, let’s be honest, the fact that he’s naked for most of the film helps too.) As Sissy, Mulligan runs the risk of being overshadowed by Fassbender’s performance but she more than holds her own while paying a character that will probably inspire mixed feelings in most viewers. Debatably, Mulligan gives an even braver performance than Fassbender. It takes guts to be this potentially unlikable on-screen and it takes talent to make us still care about the character and, fortunately, Mulligan has both.
I’ve heard a few people complain about the fact that McQueen declines to spell out any easy motivation for why Fassbender and Mulligan behave the way that they do. I would argue that this is the film’s greatest strength. Any possible explanation that McQueen could have offered would have just served to render what happens on screen simplistic. Ultimately, the characters played by Fassbender and Mulligan are mysteries to themselves as well as to the audience. That said, McQueen does offer up several clues. To his credit as a director, McQueen has faith in the ability of his audience to notice those clues without having to have things spelled out.
After watching Shame, all I can say is that perhaps, in the future, all movies should be rated NC-17.
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 TheBeaver 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.
