Britons in love feature in two romantic films opening this week, but there the similarity ends.
Like Crazy
Oh, how fraught be the path to true love. Especially when there’s a Brit involved – or so you would think from these two otherwise very different romances. Like Crazy’s Brit is aspiring writer Anna (Felicity Jones), who falls for classmate Jacob (Anton Yelchin) while studying in LA. They’re so moony over each other that she overstays her visa, and when she returns to the US to pick up where they left off she’s refused entry. Duh. What follows is the uncertain path of a long-distance relationship struggling to survive.
This is not a film of action. Its title is deliberately ironic, as the madness of love fades rather than drives. The obstacles – aside from intransigent immigration authorities – are internal, an emotional wrestling that never quite articulates itself in direct confrontation, and leaves the parties adrift in dilemma. Even when they decide to get married, it feels more like a forced response to the situation than a commitment to each other. On the one hand, this makes it feel very real and easy to empathise with; on the other, it can tax the patience.
Fortunately, the actors negotiate this subtext well, especially Jones, awarded Best Actress at Sundance. Performance is key here, and an improvisational, often dialogue-free approach is employed to express their emotional journeys, separately and together, moment to moment, in ways that feel spontaneous and truthful. And others in the cast, including Alex Kingston and Jennifer Lawrence (Winter’s Bone), bring credibly sympathetic or puzzled reactions as bystanders to all the introverted vacillation.
This is a small story. A generous view would be that its self-absorption seems to fit right into a recent trend in some indie films for closely observed ambivalent relationships, such as Beginners and The Future, but equally its autobiographical origins are probably the reason for its episodic, undramatic narrative. Still, like Beginners, it ends on a cliffhanger that’s equal parts uneasy, poignant, hopeful and honest.
There’s a cliffhanger of sorts in A Few Best Men, too, but it’s a lot sillier. Never mind; it’s perfectly in keeping with the tone. The Brit in this romance is David (McLeod’s Daughters’ Xavier Samuel); the girl is Mia (Laura Brent) from Australia. They met and romped on the beach at Tuvalu, and now David’s headed Downunder for the wedding. With his three best mates. Who are varying degrees of dickhead.
I went into this hoping for Bridesmaids in the outback. After all, the director is Stephan Elliott, who outed the outback so brilliantly in The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Wrong. It’s more Death at a Funeral in the Blue Mountains – which, in fact, makes sense, since it’s written by that film’s writer, Dean Craig. It also explains a screenplay filled with nudity, drunkenness, kidnapping, characters going AWOL and posh people behaving badly. Well, it’s a wedding. Also, Mia’s dad’s a politician.
So, no introverted vacillation here. And if this was an attempt to merge British and Australian humour, the former comes off the winner. Craig’s blackish, off-colour, broad slapstick style is plastered on with thick strokes, telegraphing its punchlines and going for the cringe. Most of the time, the Australians, despite having the numbers in the cast, do little more than hover in the background clutching their wine and looking aghast at the Pommy antics. Only Steve Le Marquand – memorably – and Olivia Newton-John – briefly – manage to score a few runs for the locals. Rebel Wilson, who plays the bride’s sister and has the kudos of having worked on Bridesmaids, is disappointingly underused and predictably written.
The spotlight is thus firmly on the best men, played by Kris Marshall (Easy Virtue), Kevin Bishop and Tim Draxl. The first two set a rapid pace in their comic exchanges, aided by equally rapid editing, and Draxl counterpoints with his dopey, lachrymose loser. While the weaker and more obvious comedy gets a bit tiresome, there are a few laugh-out-loud moments. Mad, a little bad, and for some quite possibly a guilty pleasure.
LIKE CRAZY, directed by Drake Doremus; A FEW BEST MEN, directed by Stephan Elliot.
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