Thelma & Louise out of One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, LIKE CRAZY is, well, like crazy. Crazy good.
After busting out of Villa Biondi, a presumably secure psychiatric centre in the serene countryside of Italy, Beatrice, a delusional billionaire and Donatella, a mentally fragile tattooed introvert, embark on a road trip.
Beatrice keeps both motor and mouth at full throttle, as she heads off to visit her past with Donatella in tow.
A fabulous fabulist, Beatrice passes herself off as a clinical psychiatrist staff member when she first meets Donatella. On discovering the ruse, this pushes the already fragile woman deeper into distress, yet Beatrice’s personality is so robust, so dominant, and, in some intangible way, so simpatico, that Donatella’s fractured mental state allows herself to come under her wing.
And what an encompassing wing it is, flapping, soaring, gliding in to a myriad of mad adventures.
Director and co writer ( Francesca Archibugi is co author of the script), Paolo Virzì’s film tells the story of the unpredictable and moving friendship that develops between the two women as they flee the mental institution in search of love and happiness and explores the subtle boundary between sanity and insanity.
To engage our empathy, he has cast two of the most extraordinary actresses under the Tuscan sun – Valeria Bruni Tedeschi as Beatrice and Micaela Rammazzoti as the physically and mentally emaciated Donatella.
Their flight and their plight – diverse and yet similar – forge an instinctive bond, as they cut a swathe of mayhem, both benign and less so, to exorcise, or at least ameliorate, some of the troubling demons of their respective pasts.
Just as in the midst of life there is death, in the midst of suffering there is joy, and LIKE CRAZY beautifully strikes the contrast and contradictions.
Uplifting and heart breaking, tough and tender, tear jerking and hilarious, LIKE CRAZY is one crazy journey made all the more exhilarating, exultant and euphoric by the two leads and the gorgeous countryside they veer their chaotic caper through.
Thelma & Louise out of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest for sure, LIKE CRAZY also has hints of A Streetcar Named Desire and Dog Day Afternoon.