It was a Friday and Fridays are movie days.  I had an impromptu date with a former workmate and movie buddy of mine, because he was bored out od his skull at home (he was using up his leaves from work).  Since I’ve already seen Kingsman, there was no other choice, really, but to see Richard LaGravanese (Beautiful Creatures)’s big screen adaptation of the off-broadway musical of the same name.

Here’s a trivia: the musical ran last year in Manila starring Nikki Gil and Joaquin Valdez.  I missed it because of financial reasons, but I probably wouldn’t have been able to get tickets anyways- it was an instant hit and they had sold out all of their seats early on.

Anyway.  Here’s the film’s round up:

Please note that there may be spoilers.  Read at your own risk.

THE STORY:

The film basically just retells the story of the love story between Cathy Hiatt (Anna Kendrick – Into the Woods), a struggling broadway actress, and Jamie Wellerstein (Jeremy Jordan – Smash), a writer who found success at an early age.  The film goes through all the stages of the relationship – from the fruition to the deterioration – but with a twist:  all of Cathy’s scenes and songs move backward from the moment they part ways, and Jamie’s start from the moment they met.

THE GOOD:

1. The songs were pretty powerful.  They melodies were catchy and the words were pretty accurate in capturing and portraying the pain and joys that the characters were going through.
2. Jeremy Jordan was crazy hot.  And those pipes of his, wow, just wow.  It was a difficult role to make likable, because of the choices that the character makes, but he was able to make it work.
   
3. Anna Kendrick for being able to convincingly go from a smitten young girl to a disillusioned bitter woman.  This was a really good movie to show off her range and that voice was just to die for.
   
4. I feel like the film makers were true to how the play was done.  Obviously I’ve never seen the play, but I feel that they strayed very little from the source material.
5. Story-wise, I don’t think it’ll get anymore realistic than that.  The play was excellently written.  The angsts were properly developed and all of the emotions that the characters were going through were relatable.
   

THE BAD:

1. The lack of visual distinction between the two points of views.  While the film makers did use different tones to differentiate between the happier times (golden colors) and the sadder times (grayish colors), things got a little bit confusing in the middle when Cathy and Jamie’s points of views were crossing over.
2. Shaky camera work.  The awkwardly angled close ups just didn’t work when your actors are spinning and dancing ang singing all over the place.

THE UGLY:

Nil.  This was an excellent exercise in portraying how a relationship can go from something beautiful to something sour.

All in all The Last Five Years was an excellent movie.  Performances were strong and were at par to bring to life an equally strong story.  Kendrick and Jordan’s voices had enough star power to keep your eyes glued to the screen for the entirety of the film’s ninety-four minute run time and it did help that they have excellent chemistry on screen.  Despite the instagram-esque filters, the film makers did little else to ‘beautify’ the movie, showing every little ugly bump of, what I feel, is the natural progression of every romantic relationship.  A word of warning though, this is so NOT a date movie.  Do not watch with a significant other.

THE VERDICT: 7.5/10

*All photos are lifted from the film’s IMDB page.