Like Crazy * * *

 The behaviour of mentally ill people always makes for good entertainment doesn’t it?

Just thought I’d put my politically correct criticism in before someone else does. Actually I have no problem at all with dramas on mentally ill people, and don’t think it any more insensitive than a drama on poverty, physical illness or anything else we encounter in life.

Two "crazy" escapees at the Mall.
(They'd  blend right in at my local mall)

  Nevertheless Like Crazy does tend to romanticize mental illness to a degree, especially with one of the main characters in this film who seems to have been locked up for being delightfully whacky rather than dangerous to herself or the community.

  Like Crazy is a new Italian film that did okay at the recent Italian film festival and has now been released mainstream (well, Arthouse to be more accurate).   It's not to be confused with the 2012 UK/American film of the same name.

  This Like Crazy is about two women who have been locked up because of their mental illness. It portrays an Italian mental institution as a very caring place where the staff all seem to have a very acute understanding of the individual patients. Perhaps that’s the way they do it in Italy. I don’t know, but more power to them if they do.

   Two of the patients are Beatrice and Donatella.  Beatrice has delusions of grandeur (hey I know a lot of people like that who are freely running around in society).  She talks of people she knows, parties she attended, famous men who want to be her lover and a husband who is a famous attorney (that last bit is true). But other than threatening a judge (like she could actually do anything) I don’t know why she is locked up or what her “illness” is.

   Donatella is the newly incarcerated woman.  Her background is tragic.  She mixed with the wrong crowd, got pregnant, felt rejected by society, and attempted to take her own life - and worse. But now all she wants to do is see her relinquished child.  

  Both women are sent on gardening duty off-site and use the opportunity to make a run for it.  

  So the story turns into a road movie with shades of Thelma and Louise.  They’re not so much on the run from the institution (which they don’t really mind), they’re off to get Donatella reunited with her son.

  It is a well made film with fine acting and a moving story - especially that of Donatella’s - but for what it has to say, Like Crazy does tend to outstay its welcome after a while.