There is a level of genuine intimacy generated by the two actors, Felicity Jones and Anton Yelchin (Chekhov in the "Star Trek" reboot), playing the young lovers in this low-key, low-budget 2011 indie romantic drama directed and co-written by Drake Doremus. Apparently, he and co-scenarist Ben York Jones wrote a fifty-page outline for the movie and allowed the actors to flesh out the story by having them improvise most of their lines. The net result is a level of naturalness achieved in their performances that comes across without contrivance, no small feat given how predictable most love-at-first-sight movies can be. However, there is a nagging conventionality and a relative imbalance to the love story that makes the film fall short of its emotional objective with this viewer.
Yelchin and Jones play Jacob and Anna, senior-year college students in LA who fall in love shortly before the latter is to return to her native London. Naturally, there is a meet-cute set-up that leads to a hesitant first date that leads them headlong into unbridled romance. So smitten are they with each other that Anna overstays her student visa and doesn't return home on schedule. When she tries to return to LA, she is detained by immigration officials and forced to go home. What occurs is a long-distance relationship hampered by their separate burgeoning careers (she becomes a magazine writer/blogger, he a furniture designer), the fragility of love, and the fear of commitment. Their hopeless naiveté in a post-9/11 world is a plot device that forces each of them to decide what they are willing to do to invest in their relationship.
It is at this point that each seems to divert since Anna is willing to make all the hard choices whereas Jacob appears comparatively passive in his commitment. Perhaps it would have been excessive (and maybe a bit boring) to have both lovers follow their hearts in equal proportion, but the gap does undermine what would have made the relationship more compelling to witness beyond the standard romantic montages and overtures seen in like-minded films ("The Notebook", for example). While both lead actors are affecting and perceptive in their respective roles, the charismatic Jones has the advantage of playing a character that is far more transparent in her motivations. Yelchin is saddled with the more elliptical role where we are left to guess how far he is willing to commit.
Compelling in just a few scenes as Jacob's comely assistant Sam, Jennifer Lawrence ("Winter's Bone") is the inevitable temptation in his path, while Charlie Bewley makes less of an impression as Anna's neighbor Simon. Familiar TV actors Alex Kingston and Oliver Muirhead play Anna's supportive parents with measured gusto, while another familiar small-screen face, Finola Hughes ("General Hospital"), nicely plays Anna's boss. Framed by John Guleserian's hand-held digital camera-work, the film benefits from the incisive way Doremus staged several of the key scenes, especially the ones that highlight the intermittent disconnects between the lovers, and the young filmmaker shrewdly provides an ambiguous ending allowing viewers to fill in the blanks with the future of Jacob's and Anna's relationship. Nonetheless, the film just didn't leave an indelible impression on me.
Yelchin and Jones play Jacob and Anna, senior-year college students in LA who fall in love shortly before the latter is to return to her native London. Naturally, there is a meet-cute set-up that leads to a hesitant first date that leads them headlong into unbridled romance. So smitten are they with each other that Anna overstays her student visa and doesn't return home on schedule. When she tries to return to LA, she is detained by immigration officials and forced to go home. What occurs is a long-distance relationship hampered by their separate burgeoning careers (she becomes a magazine writer/blogger, he a furniture designer), the fragility of love, and the fear of commitment. Their hopeless naiveté in a post-9/11 world is a plot device that forces each of them to decide what they are willing to do to invest in their relationship.
It is at this point that each seems to divert since Anna is willing to make all the hard choices whereas Jacob appears comparatively passive in his commitment. Perhaps it would have been excessive (and maybe a bit boring) to have both lovers follow their hearts in equal proportion, but the gap does undermine what would have made the relationship more compelling to witness beyond the standard romantic montages and overtures seen in like-minded films ("The Notebook", for example). While both lead actors are affecting and perceptive in their respective roles, the charismatic Jones has the advantage of playing a character that is far more transparent in her motivations. Yelchin is saddled with the more elliptical role where we are left to guess how far he is willing to commit.
Compelling in just a few scenes as Jacob's comely assistant Sam, Jennifer Lawrence ("Winter's Bone") is the inevitable temptation in his path, while Charlie Bewley makes less of an impression as Anna's neighbor Simon. Familiar TV actors Alex Kingston and Oliver Muirhead play Anna's supportive parents with measured gusto, while another familiar small-screen face, Finola Hughes ("General Hospital"), nicely plays Anna's boss. Framed by John Guleserian's hand-held digital camera-work, the film benefits from the incisive way Doremus staged several of the key scenes, especially the ones that highlight the intermittent disconnects between the lovers, and the young filmmaker shrewdly provides an ambiguous ending allowing viewers to fill in the blanks with the future of Jacob's and Anna's relationship. Nonetheless, the film just didn't leave an indelible impression on me.