La Pazza Gioia (Like Crazy) is filmmaking at its best. It fills you with love and hope. Driven by an impossibly well crafted script, the film follows the awkward and relentless friendship of two women who meet as patients in a sort of light-form psychiatric compound, hosted inside a quaint Tuscan villa. Opposed in character, looks and troubles, Beatrice and Donatella find common ground in their need for second chances. One day, they flee the villa and begin their scouring of the real world for pieces of their former life.
The performances are as raw and authentic as two psychotic Italian women roaming the streets will ever be. The exposition always delivered in the shadow of the women’s fantasies and deliriums, just enough so you don’t ever know if it fact or fantasy.
But it’s in the characters’ simple wishes and good nature that lies the film’s soul. Somewhere along the middle, the women arrive at a hyper fancy glam restaurant, with no money to pay for it. They get there after Beatrice turns down Donatella’s proposal to go and have a sandwich by heartbreakingly saying:
“A sandwich? Who ever found happiness in a sandwich?”
First time I ever want to hug a film.