The Last Five Years

This Last 5 Years is a gut punch right from the start that doesn't let up until the very end. In fact, I might say this is one of the saddest movies/ musicals I have ever watched. The film follows the last five years of Cathy(Anna Kendrick) and Jamie's relationship from two different perspectives. Cathy's story is told from the ending to the beginning, while Jamies is told in chronological order from beginning to end. Cathy is a struggling actor, and Jamie is a successful writer (notice the gender imbalance? This movie is full of it). You can't spoil this movie because you are told right off the bat that Jamie left Cathy, and it's painfully clear that he cheated on her, which is one of the downsides of the film. It's hard to get emotionally involved in the film when you know the ending and that it is sad. Also, the tagline is that there are two sides to every breakup-what a joke. Jamie is literally the worst person ever. If I had to vote for the worst character of all, I would vote for Jamie without a second's hesitation. I would take being with any villain over this selfish, whiny, cheating man child, and there is no excuse for what his character does to Cathy! None! I hated him so much that the first time I gave this film a five for Anna Kendrick's performance, which is amazing and heartbreaking. Five because 50 % of the movie is Anna which is amazing, and 50% is Jamie which is awful. However, after rewatching it a few times, I think I was too hard on it. Anna Kendrick's performance is simply fantastic. The way she is able to convey emotion while singing the entire time is beyond amazing. Especially Anna's first two musical numbers are nothing short of perfection. However, I do think it might have been better if they switched the story up a little and Had us start with Cathy's story at the beginning and Jamie's at the end. For one, it would make the story more interesting because we know Jamie is fine with moving on, and it would make us wonder about Cathy's reaction. Secondly, I think I'm still hurting is the best song in the film, so it's a little disappointing when it is right at the start as the other songs aren't as good. Also, Anna looks absolutely stunning in the film. I love seeing her as blonde and seeing how her hair changes over the course of the narrative. And her outfits are amazing. She is nothing short of stunning, and she takes your breath away every scene. Yet, she is still sweet and kind even though her character is with the worst person who ever lived. All in all, It is definitely worth watching once. After that, you can just watch the Cathey parts. Just know it isn't a comedy going in. I've watched it several times, and I have to say I'm Still Hurting!

I really liked the way the story lines were a reverse parallel, with one character starting at the end and working backwards, and the other starting at the beginning and going forwards until they converged.

I liked the way the plot didn't go with the usual romantic clichés, but added some complexity to what could have been just another boy meets girl story.

The music wasn't overly memorable, but there was a clever catchy quality to the lyrics much of the time, and the tunes were sufficiently serviceable to not detract.

BUT...why oh why do directors use such fakey lip synching? I really think it would be far better to use live singing, even with an occasional flaw (as, for example, was done with Les Miserables, which took real guts given the scope of that film!) I understand that the actors did at least do their own singing, but still, the lip sync makes the inherently unlikely format of a musical frequently seem silly--and I am actually a big fan of the old, classic musicals like The Sound of Music, etc.

Also, it was so obvious that they were not actually singing at those moments, because you HAVE GOT TO OPEN YOUR MOUTH to make those sounds! Finally, and this may just be a personal (lack of) preference, but I found Anna Kendrick's voice to often have an unpleasant, fingernails-on-chalkboard edge to it.

This film tells the story of an actress and her novelist husband, chronicling their encounter, marriage and divorce.

I didn't know "The Last Five Years" is a musical, so I was quite baffled by the initial scene of Anna Kendrick singing for a full five minutes. Then, I get to enjoy many beautiful songs and lovely scenery. Colours are lush, even the trees look very saturated with striking green. It's a beautiful film to watch, but I think there's little emphasis on the plot. There's very little build up of the plot, and the story does not flow to the following segment because every song is just so long. There's just not enough time to fit five years into ninety minutes, especially when every song is at least five minutes long.

On the whole, "The Last Five Years" is a nice film, but I will forget about it on a few months.

Part of my resolution to have a movie review blog was to watch movies I wouldn't otherwise see, and "The Last Five Years" is not a movie I would've seen in theaters but I might have picked it up on DVD or if it was Netflix. I'm not a hater of musicals in the least, and I'm not one of those who doesn't like books or musicals turned into movies, but this movie is one reason why those people exist and why it's easy to criticize the adaptation.

The movie tells the story of a young Jewish novelist and a struggling actress he falls in love with. The plot and characters have an obvious appeal to people in musical theater, something I've learned to expect in any modern musical similar to how novelists like to have their main characters be novelists or bookstore owners (or both). The annoying part of this movie is that it's all the movie is. If I had to sum up the movie it'd be two people in creative lines of work with varying success having passionate, almost over-the-top duets. And that's the entire movie. And it's all sung (which I'm not outright against since it worked so well in "Umbrellas of Cherbourg").

Jamie is the younger, more successful, more arrogant novelist in the relationship while Cathy seems to have more charm and personability though she can't seem to get a break in her career. Questions of resentment and female independence in her career (and the comments seem to be just token nods) arise for moments though it sinks back down in the quicksand of necking that the two characters seem to do way too much.

What's innovative about how the story is told, though (and I see this as one of two of the movie's redeeming aspects) is that the plot moves in two directions, one from the beginning with Cathy's memories of their marriage, and the other where Jamie's memories are told from the beginning. Something's to be said for how men and women remember relationships different, what they saw as the best moments and what they saw as the worst. The film does play favorites with Cathy, though which is no surprise given the history of plots in musical theater and their primary demographic.

The second strong part of this movie is Anna Kendrick's performance. I was dubious at first but she carries herself well and has more nuance in her character portrayal than her male co-lead. Her voice is good, not great, and her acting ability supplements her singing very well.

The main problem with this movie is tone. Yes, it's a rehashing of a romance from memory from two perspectives, but it is all singing, and all centered directly around romance depicted in a small set of actions between two actors. It's the false idea that anything worth telling about a relationship must be the romantic interactions, as if there wasn't anything else worth recalling about two people being in love. And by romantic interplay I mean talking through transitional points in the relationship, fights about expectations and communication, and physicality (which may seem broad but it doesn't come across as such in the movie). That's 99% of the movie and everything the characters do revolves around that strong theme. The problem is that it's too strong of a seasoning. It's where a spice becomes the meat and you miss the stable taste of flesh rather than a watery stock or sprinkling of flavor. It's like George Lucas yelling "faster and more intense" to his actors in the first Star Wars movie without any further direction. I imagine the director doing a similar thing with the two leads in this, "passionate and more in love" which inevitably will lead to an overbearing depiction of the same thing we've seen throughout the movie. This movie will appeal to viewers who already adore musicals but will not win over any new fans to the genre.

Greetings again from the darkness. Adapting a hit stage production to the big screen is always a bit challenging. When it's a full blown musical, the challenge grows exponentially. Throw in a highly unusual story-telling structure and limit 99% of the screen time to two characters and, well, a filmmaker is either off-the-charts ambitious or one who truly enjoys suffering for art.

Director Richard LaGravenese (P.S. I Love You) brings the hit off-Broadway musical by Jason Robert Brown to the screen, and features Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan as Cathy and Jamie, respectively. Ms. Kendrick has become the go-to actress for musicals with Into the Woods (as Cinderella) and the Pitch Perfect movies. She is a wonderful singer and a fine actress. Mr. Jordan is best known for TV's "Smash" and for "Newsies" on Broadway. He too is a talented singer.

Surprisingly, it's not the talented leads that provide the most interest here … it's the story structure. As per the title, the story follows the couple's relationship over a five year period. The opening scene features Cathy reading and reacting to the break-up note left by Jamie. The second scene features Jamie describing his joy when he first falls for Cathy, as they romp in bed. See, Cathy's story goes from the end to the beginning, while Jamie's story goes from the beginning to the end … intersecting only at the marriage proposal in the park. It's a fascinating way to tell a story – not just two perspectives, but also in reverse order of each other!

The song lyrics act as the dialogue, and that's where the transition from stage to screen falls a bit short. While the lyrics are clever and adequately describe each relationship change, those same lyrics and the non-stop singing, prevent the viewers from ever connecting to the characters … and more importantly, prevent us from understanding how these two characters ever connected to each other. Rather than a love story, it comes across as a moment of passion that turns into a relationship between two people who don't have much in common and don't particularly care for each other. And the real crux of the tension stems from Jamie's skyrocketing novel writing career versus Cathy's going-nowhere-but-Ohio acting career.

Cathy starts sad and ends happy, while Jamie starts happy (he found a Shiksa princess!) and finds a way to end his misery (writing a Dear Jane note). It's Sunset to Sunrise, and Sunrise to Sunset. The "goodbye" finale is very creative and well done. This unusual story structure is quite interesting, and the lyrics are sharp … it's the lack of spirit in the music, and the 90 minutes of the same two voices that prevent this from being something special.