Like Crazy – movie review

Happiness is the name of the game for two inpatients at a progressive psychiatric institution, both of whom are trying to attain it in Like Crazy.

Beatrice speaks at a thousand miles an hour and is easily worked up. She is a self-styled billionaire countess who likes to believe she is on intimate terms with world leaders. Donatella, on the other hand, is a heavily tattooed introvert, a fragile young woman locked in her own mystery involving absent parents and a child that has been taken from her. Paolo Virzi’s new film explores the relationship between this pair as they flee the mental facility in search of love and happiness. So, it is a road trip with a difference. It becomes a meandering, euphoric journey into the outside world.

Before Virzi and his co-writer Francesca Archibugi immersed themselves in that task, they met up with many psychiatrists and psychotherapists to delve into the world of medical frameworks, therapies and treatments. Virzi says they really wanted to empathise with the two protagonists. “And being on Beatrice and Donatella’s side, with their carry on and blunders, meant that we had to emphasise just how important their background is, made up of heartache, abuse, loneliness, suffering and pain. On the other hand there are also many amusing, delirious, comical and messed up sides to (them).”

Thelma and Louise on drugs comes to mind when reflecting upon Like Crazy. It is fun and zany, on occasions sentimental and far too long. After a while I thought I was watching a never-ending story. A number of scenes could easily have been cut out and the movie would still have hung together nicely.

Valeria Bruni Tedeschi gives a virtuoso performance as “an Energiser Bunny” – Beatrice, a woman who comes across as living in cloud cuckoo land, but who means well. While it is she and Micaela Ramazzotti, as Donatella, on whom the movie focuses, it is their interactions with others that creates the humour and pathos.

So, Like Crazy has richness and is, at times, enriching but it suffers from being too self-indulgent … and the ending is pure Hollywood. Rated M, it scores a 6½ to 7 out of 10.

Director: Paolo Virzì
Cast: Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Micaela Ramazzotti
Release Date: 24 November 2016 (limited)
Rating: M

Alex First