Most people may remember Anton Yelchin, who sadly died Sunday in a weird car accident, for his role as Chekov in the new “Star Trek” film. However, Yelchin gave perhaps the finest performance of his too-brief career in this romance. “Like Crazy” is a low-key, intelligent movie about romance and bad timing, from indie* director Drake Doremus. It won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2011.

    Felicity Jones plays Anna, a British college student in Los Angeles who falls for* an American, Jacob, played by Yelchin. When the term ends for the summer, so does Anna’s student visa. They know that the sensible* thing would be for her to go home, and wait just a few months while she gets the cash to come back with the proper documentation*. But a few months is a long time when you’re in your early 20s, so Anna defies* the visa law and sticks around in LA for a glorious summer of love. It is a decision that affects the rest of both their lives.

    Once Anna and Jacob are parted, Doremus shows how they are tortured* with the painful thought that other partners, other life choices, are possible. Jennifer Lawrence plays Sam, the assistant at the furniture design workshop Jacob sets up after college. She begins a relationship with him, aware of the claim of this far-off British girl but also aware of how good they look together. Meanwhile, Anna gets entangled* with a neighbor. The person you met at college need not necessarily be the one. But what if he or she is the one?

    Alex Kingston and Oliver Muirhead give performances of gentle charm as Anna’s caring parents, and guardians of her uncool, middle-class upbringing.

    Another type of movie would always seek to make you believe that, whatever happens, the soulmates are destined* to be together, in some way. Not here. Doremus shows how being young is not the paradise we are encouraged to misremember, but a world of frustration*, unhappiness and embarrassment*. Apart from everything else, the film reminds of the awful fact that all choices are permanent*, to some degree. Life cannot be rewound and done over. (SD-Agencies)