Story

Anna (Felicity Jones) and Jacob (Anton Yelchin) meet and fall in love while studying at a college in Los Angeles. But Anna is on a student visa from the United Kingdom. She overstays her visa, so she isn’t allowed to return to the United States for several years. Anna and Jacob try to keep their relationship going, and Jacob travels to the United Kingdom when he can. They even get married, but the authorities still won’t change the rules. Time and distance make it hard for them. Jacob can’t settle in the United Kingdom, and while they’re apart, they each find new love interests.

Themes

First love; long-distance relationships; immigration laws

Violence

This movie includes some violence. For example, Anna and Jacob have a strong verbal argument.

Sexual references

This movie has some sexual references. For example, Anna and Jacob talk about whether they’ve slept with other people when they’ve been apart.

Alcohol, drugs and other substances

This movie shows people drinking alcohol. For example:

  • Characters drink at various places – home, pubs, clubs and so on.
  • Anna teaches Jacob to drink whisky.
  • Characters drink out of beer bottles.
  • There are scenes when both Anna and Jacob drink a lot, but their drinking doesn’t seem to have any consequences.

Nudity and sexual activity

This movie has some partial nudity and sexual activity. For example:

  • There are scenes of Jacob and Anna in bed together. Usually they have clothes on. Sometimes they don’t have clothes on, but they’re covered by sheets.
  • Jacob and Anna have a bath and a shower together.
  • Anna has sex with a new partner, Simon. Jacob has sex with a new partner, Samantha.

Product placement

The following products are displayed or used in this movie: iPhones and brands of whisky.

Coarse language

This movie has some coarse language.

Ideas to discuss with your children

Like Crazy is a romantic drama about first love. The characters and situations are honestly portrayed, and the movie moves through time quite cleverly. The movie is likely to appeal to teenagers and raises some important discussion topics. If you have younger teenagers, you might be concerned about the scenes of sexual activity, drinking and coarse language.

The main messages from this movie are that relationships take effort and commitment. Sometimes you have to get over a lot of obstacles to make relationships work.

Values in this movie that you could reinforce with your children include honesty and communication in relationships.

This movie could also give you the chance to talk about the following real-life issues with your children:

  • attitudes towards sex and relationships – for example, Anna has a very good relationship with her parents, who love her and talk to her quite openly about sex
  • the movie’s presentation of drinking – does it realistically show the effects of drinking too much?

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Raising Children Network is supported by the Australian Government. Member organisations are the Parenting Research Centre and the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute with The Royal Children’s Hospital Centre for Community Child Health.

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