Like Crazy

Like Crazy
2011 [Trailer]
Director: Drake Doremus (IMDB)

The power of words and the decline of meaning in contemporary culture  [Oh yeah…I wrote a sentence or two about film ratings and I fleetingly mentioned the movie somewhere in there.]
(2011)

What follows is way too long and I don’t expect anyone to read it. It started as a film review but got rather personal and grew to the equivalent of 18 pages in length. I cut it down to 3 pages and pasted a few segments below.

What is love? It’s a word that we all think we understand but do we really? People use words differently and that is the source of so much pain and misunderstanding. I am someone who is very careful about the terms that I use. I am not prone to superlatives. I rarely use words such as brilliant, best, awesome, great, genius, amazing, breathtaking, love, etc.  I shy away from bestowing the moniker “friends” upon people who are not. I happen to revere the true meaning of words and I will do all that I can in my own life to preserve the potency of my expressions.

This is a slight digression from an already discursive blog post but I would like to comment upon the use of the word “perfect” which is a rather different matter. I think that “perfect” is one of the more damaging words in the English lexicon. It creates impossible expectations and leads to a great deal of disappointment and lack of fulfillment. It is a term that I never use because nothing is perfect and that’s not a bad thing. There is so much in life that is immensely beautiful, moving, and special…none of which is even remotely perfect. For those of you out there who have children, please steer them away from the word “perfect". By espousing that as an expectation or something to be pursued, you are setting them up for so much unnecessary self-flagellation and unhappiness. Now, back to my quasi review...

Love is a profound concept. When I say that I love someone, it is a promise: it is a commitment to always care deeply and to do everything in my power to make sure that person experiences the greatest happiness and fulfillment that life has to offer. I have only ever told one girlfriend in my life that I loved her; our lives took separate paths but I will always have a place for her in my heart. Words and articulated ideas are powerful: that is why I can’t just casually utter them. The more that you use a word with different people/apply a superlative to different things, in my estimation, the less it means. That’s why I virtually never give films a 5 star review. I don’t begrudge people who do. I just prefer to preserve such accolades for a very small number of films that are exceptionally special to me. Maybe my standards are too harsh. Maybe those who are more generous in their praise ultimately live better lives. If I were like those individuals, maybe I would be happier…maybe life would be all the sweeter…food would taste better…the stars would twinkle brighter … my days would be suffused with light and optimism…I would go forth each morning with an unshakable confidence that the best things are yet to come.   Terms like “great” and “amazing” flow forth from people with unquestionable ease on a daily basis. I know it’s how people talk but I just can’t do it. I’m not built that way. I don’t love food; I don’t love pieces of music; I don’t love works of art; I don’t love articles of clothing; I don’t love TV shows. I may thoroughly enjoy things; I may be deeply touched by things; I may be inspired my things; I may cherish things…but I do not "love things". Love, in my life, is reserved for people and a select few at that.  I love only that which has the capacity to love me back.

I know someone who calls almost 20 people her best friend. I once tried to point out the odd way that she uses the word “best” but she starred at me blankly and saw no contradiction. She stated that she has a number of best friends, none better than the other, and that’s just the way it is. How could she so glibly throw around the term “best friend”? I could never wrap my mind around what she meant.  We are two very different people.

Given that word selection means so much to me, it makes life tricky. I date someone and she tells me that she loves me but what does she mean? She may think that she loves me or she may really love me. I have no idea. It’s all about trust. If you don’t trust, you lead a very sad and lonely life. If you trust unwisely, you may find yourself devastated.  I am very careful about to whom I open my heart. When someone cares for me and I, at that point in the relationship, don’t feel as strongly, I am worried that this imbalance will persist and I may hurt them: not intentionally but rather by not feeling as deeply as they do. When I really begin to care for someone, I am terrified that they will ultimately hurt me and that the connection will not endure. I have only loved once and my heart was broken…I still carry that pain with me. I loved someone who made me believe that she loved me every bit as much as I loved her but it wasn’t true. She was the first person I loved; I was ostensibly the first person she had ever loved. I thought we felt the same. I don’t think she lied. I think that she thought that she loved me. I think that we simply cared for each other differently. We had different understandings about the meaning and implications of saying that you love someone. I loved her in the only way that I know how; her “love” was ultimately not as enduring. She made choices that were best for her in her life and I sincerely hope that she is happy. I hope that she has a better life without me. I still care for her a great deal, as silly and fruitless as that may be, and I think that I always will.

Like Crazy is a story of young something (I hasten to call it love).  The female lead begins a relationship with the male lead. Did they ever really love each other? Do they love each other in the end? I have no idea. Based on my definition of love, I don’t feel that they ever really did and, by the end, I am convinced that they don’t. Others may view things far differently. I think that there was an imbalance of caring at the beginning which was overcome/swept away by the deluge of emotion that comes with a budding, young romance. She liked him and was the initial pursuer. As the relationship developed, there seemed to be equal caring which was ultimately strained by external circumstances.  There were ups and downs in their relationship: fueled by lack of communication, distance, and the realities of a connection in which the initial spark of love dimmed. How do we distinguish that initial flood of emotion from love? How do we know that what we feel is true? Their behaviors, when separated by geography, don’t seem like the actions of people in love…at least not any “love” that I ever want to be a part of.  Some might say that they both justifiably find solace in the arms of others. A lot of people understand what that's like...feeling lonely and engaging someone just because they desire you and they are available. 

To me, consorting with someone else in even a remotely intimate way while you are still in love just doesn’t make sense.  If you really love someone, how could you be with someone else (especially while you are still in a relationship)? From my own experience, the mere thought of being with someone else other than the one that I loved was stomach-churning. Even after we broke up, for at least a couple of years, the prospect of sleeping with someone who wasn’t her was nauseating. Some may say it’s just a physical act and it may be for some. For me, physical intimacy is inextricably intertwined with deep feelings. I can’t separate the two; I wouldn’t want one without the other. If it was just the bodily act of sex, then what’s the point? I don’t mean to condemn those who can compartmentalize the physical and the emotional…I just don’t ever want to be in a relationship with someone who can.

I felt very conflicted throughout this film. I both felt sorry for, and was troubled by, the main characters. I think that they betray each other in ways both subtle and explicit. I don’t know who is responsible for the way things unfold. All I know is that, from my perspective, they both undermine the love that they profess. To make matters worse, they harm other people in the process. They allowed others to develop strong feelings for them when they didn’t feel as intensely. Imbalance/difference rearing its head again. Neither of their hearts were free yet they went through the motions of loving: a cruel practice indeed. What is to come of these people in the end? Will they recapture the intensity of their initial romance? Will they grow to love each other? Do they have the capacity? Are they deluded enough to think that they know what love is and that they understand it in the same way? Unfortunately, all too many relationships crumble. There are, of course, those who stay together for the long-haul but endurance does not exactly equate with love. It is certainly a necessary, but not at all a sufficient, component. There are innumerable reasons why people maintain their relationships: obligation, fear, guilt, familial/social pressure, financial constraints, children, respect, appreciation, fondness, etc. Some people convince themselves that they love and come to believe it. The fortunate amongst us love unceasingly/unquestionably/purely and are loved equally by an other until the day they die.

I don’t know if the things that I thought about upon seeing this movie are a reflection of the film itself or simply what I brought to the table. This is not a typical tale of romance and, for that, it deserves praise. It presents relationships as they often are and not as we wish them to be. This film provoked a response in me and that is something that I value in a movie. It’s certainly not a feel good story but the truths hinted at are important. I hope that the elements of the story that I found interesting were intentional and not the product of a screenwriter who created these characters without any sense of irony. Initially, I had problems with this movie but I realized that I was responding more to how I eventually felt about the characters.  I think that I responded negatively because I started off really liking these people and came away feeling very conflicted. Any movie that can play with my perceptions and emotions like that is doing something right.  Ultimately, I came to appreciate the film for what it conjured in me...for the way in which it was disquieting...for its take on the realities and vicissitudes of romance. This isn't so much a story about actual love as it is about the inertia of the idea of love...about the sometimes life-changing, irrevocable choices we make when we think we are in love.