You know that feeling of new love that is somewhere between joy and pain? That is the rare feeling that this film captures. Like the whiskey its characters drink, it is drunk on love. Like an alcoholic after a bender, the young couple takes breaks, but the smell of their intoxicating lover makes them uncork the bottle and guzzle the burning liquid again. Is it good for them? Are they in too deep? Can they ever recover? Can a drunk ever live on the occasional sip? Does it taste the same when they sober up and reality comes into play?
Jacob (Anton Yelchin, STAR TREK) and Anna (Felicity Jones, THE TEMPEST) are our young lovers. She, a British citizen, is in the States studying and meets him in class. Too shy to approach him directly, she puts a long letter on his car. He calls and tells her that she isn’t a nutcase as she feared she might come off. They click from the start. After graduation, she must go home because her visa is about to run out. But during a romantic trip to Catalina Island, she decides to just stay the summer. When she tries to come back later, she can’t.
Writer/director Drake Doremus captures the frustration, difficulty and longing that a long distance relationship creates. Jacob and Anna aren’t so consumed with their love that they can’t look at it practically. They take breaks while they are away, but like an addict they fall off the wagon and back into each other’s arms. But more than a 3,000 miles and an ocean are keeping them apart. Jacob is developing a custom furniture business in Los Angeles and has developed a relationship with his co-worker Sam (Jennifer Lawrence, WINTER’S BONE). Anna has turned heads with her writing at the website she works for. When Jacob comes to visit her, he feels disconnected from her life, which makes him feel weird. He also wonders if she is sleeping with her handsome neighbor Simon (Charlie Bewley, THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON).
Yelchin has always shown that he has range even as a kid in HEARTS IN ATLANTIS. Here he gives Jacob vulnerability and ego at the same time. One could say he’s even a bit selfish. But is it all a defensive to ward off the possibility that he and Anna won’t make it? Jones is a remarkable new talent, whose jury award at Sundance was well deserved. She brings to Anna charm, intelligence and yet naïveté also. She is a romantic who wants to protect herself from the fact that she is one. Jacob and Anna are like Velcro, each time they are ripped apart the less securely they stick together the next time.
As rich as the two leads are the film is also filled with great supporting characters. Anna’s parents Jackie (Alex Kingston, TV’s E.R.) and Bernard (Oliver Muirhead, THE SOCIAL NETWORK) are open, inviting people. We get a sense of where Anna’s personality has come from. With simple looks, we understand how their daughter has changed for the better or worse and how they feel about it. Simon is a dynamic personality who transforms the people around him into versions of himself. If the film has any flaw it’s that Lawrence’s Sam is not developed more complexly. And yet her convenience speaks volumes about Jacob.
Doremus’ direction is as assured as his writing. He creates a sense that fate is stacked against these two and they are only human. At the same time he creates doubt that they will make it, or that they even should be together, while still making us hope for the best. A good romance makes us want the characters to be together. This is a great drama because it makes us want the best for both characters regardless of the outcome of their relationship.
Doremus is a romantic at heart too. He fills the film with rich symbolism from Anna’s chair to the broken bracelet with Patience inscribed on it. He also crafts a shower scene that actually has a deeper meaning than simply taking the actors’ clothes off. Doremus does it all without melodrama. This is all woven into well observed scenarios that feel lived in and not manufactured.
If you’re looking for a fairy tale romance, seek out any number of romcoms at the cineplex. But if you’re looking for love as beautiful and complicated and ugly as it can get than this is the film for you. In the end, Doremus gives us all the reasons why Jacob and Anna won’t work and why they will work. It’s ambiguous and yet satisfying. It goes down smoothly and still burns your stomach a little. If you can’t tell, I’ll admit it now – I am intoxicated on this film.
Rick DeMott
Animation World Network
Creator of Rick's Flicks Picks
