The Last Five Years
Apr. 20th, 2015 08:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chuckroJamie and Cathy’s five-year relationship ends badly. Bouncing back and forth through time and perspectives, we see all of the major moments of it play out.
I really like Anna Kendrick and think she’s very talented, and her co-star (Jeremy Jordan, who I am otherwise unfamiliar with) was fine, but I wasn’t that wild about this overall. (And to be fair, it made excellent use of Kendrick’s musical chops, but the best scenes were when she got to show off comedically: "A Summer in Ohio," "Climbing Uphill,” and her reactions in “The Schmuel Song.”)
My first complaint was that the sequence of events in time was not broadcast in a useful way to the audience. Apparently it was more distinct in the stage show that Jamie starts at the beginning and moves forward; Cathy starts at the end and moves backwards; and they trade off numbers. (Meeting in the middle at their wedding at the act break.) But because they interact with each other and there’s nothing usefully distinctive about either timeline, this isn’t clear unless you read the Wikipedia article ahead of time. Heck, putting a date in little numbers at the beginning of each scene would have done wonders for clarity.
But beyond that, not enough actually happens in the story: There’s no useful “reveal”, no big twist. Oh, he had the affair we were pretty sure he’d had and then everything fell apart. The entire second act doesn’t give us anything—logistically or emotionally—that we hadn’t already seen.
You can tell that the author is male, because Jamie is the one who actually makes things happen: His success propels the story, he chooses to move in with Cathy, he gives her the career pep talk, he proposes, he has the affair(s), he moves out and leaves a letter. Cathy’s songs are very reactive and frustrated; but she doesn’t move the plot. (Which also makes sense that she’s the one whose story moves backwards in time: Jamie moves with the story and makes it happen. Cathy moves against the story and watches it.)
Overall: The actors are good, the cinematography is good, the comedic bits work, but the show overall isn’t so great. There just isn’t enough there. Also for reference, this is not a good date night movie.
I really like Anna Kendrick and think she’s very talented, and her co-star (Jeremy Jordan, who I am otherwise unfamiliar with) was fine, but I wasn’t that wild about this overall. (And to be fair, it made excellent use of Kendrick’s musical chops, but the best scenes were when she got to show off comedically: "A Summer in Ohio," "Climbing Uphill,” and her reactions in “The Schmuel Song.”)
My first complaint was that the sequence of events in time was not broadcast in a useful way to the audience. Apparently it was more distinct in the stage show that Jamie starts at the beginning and moves forward; Cathy starts at the end and moves backwards; and they trade off numbers. (Meeting in the middle at their wedding at the act break.) But because they interact with each other and there’s nothing usefully distinctive about either timeline, this isn’t clear unless you read the Wikipedia article ahead of time. Heck, putting a date in little numbers at the beginning of each scene would have done wonders for clarity.
But beyond that, not enough actually happens in the story: There’s no useful “reveal”, no big twist. Oh, he had the affair we were pretty sure he’d had and then everything fell apart. The entire second act doesn’t give us anything—logistically or emotionally—that we hadn’t already seen.
You can tell that the author is male, because Jamie is the one who actually makes things happen: His success propels the story, he chooses to move in with Cathy, he gives her the career pep talk, he proposes, he has the affair(s), he moves out and leaves a letter. Cathy’s songs are very reactive and frustrated; but she doesn’t move the plot. (Which also makes sense that she’s the one whose story moves backwards in time: Jamie moves with the story and makes it happen. Cathy moves against the story and watches it.)
Overall: The actors are good, the cinematography is good, the comedic bits work, but the show overall isn’t so great. There just isn’t enough there. Also for reference, this is not a good date night movie.
