3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and occasional profanity
By Derrick Bang
Mother Nature must’ve been really cranky when she came up with cystic fibrosis.
The genetic disorder is ghastly enough on its own, but insult to injury comes from the fact that two such victims must be very, very careful to avoid proximity to each other: a detail that apparently inspired Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis to concoct a premise laden with irony and Shakespearean-level tragedy.
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| Unable to enjoy anything close to a proper date, Stella (Haley Lu Richardson) and Will (Cole Sprouse) make the most of various hospital locales. |
What if two CF sufferers fell in love?
The result, Five Feet Apart, is a sweet little melodrama orchestrated with considerable care by director Justin Baldoni.
That seems a contradiction in terms, for a late entry in the “dying teenager” cycle that erupted after 2014’s adaptation of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars. And, indeed, this film follows some of that mini-genre’s clichés: resolute young protagonist determined to beat the odds; engaging sidebar characters; little victories snatched from the jaws of frustrating setbacks. And vice-versa.
Some of the plot points are predictable; there’s simply no getting around it. Such stories come with limitations and built-in expectations.
But there’s also no getting around the fact that Haley Lu Richardson is quite charming in the lead role, and she’s well supported by Cole Sprouse and their co-stars. More crucially, Daughtry and Iaconis tell an engaging story while also supplying a gentle primer on the ins and outs of CF. This film doesn’t shy from grim details, but Baldoni avoids unnecessarily graphic or invasive sequences. We get it.
Indeed, everything comes together quite well … until a third-act hiccup that almost destroys the good will that Baldoni, Daughtry and Iaconis have built to that point: a sequence that abruptly stops feeling genuine, and becomes contrived Hollywood stupidity. Rips us right out of the movie.
The error was obvious to everybody at Tuesday evening’s preview screening, when the theater suddenly erupted with disappointed variations of “Oh, come on.”
So let’s set that aside, for the moment.
Plucky, 17-year-old Stella Grant (Richardson) has battled CF her entire life, meeting the enemy with a blend of high spirits, dogged research and the cheerful acceptance of limitations and frequent medical intervention. She has loyal gal pals who keep up with her candid vlog; she knows the nearby hospital staff on a first-name basis, thanks to treatment regimens that can last days or weeks. She manages the overwhelming quantity of meds with a scientist’s meticulous precision.
On the negative side, her parents are divorced: not uncommon, for a family coping with such tragedy. And, as the story begins, she winds up in the hospital yet again, for a “tune-up.” She puts on a game face for her online acknowledgment of same, but we see the fear in her eyes. Richardson gives a nicely shaded performance.
Actually, Stella’s fastidious approach to her treatment — and everything else — isn’t mere attention to detail; perhaps as a result of living with CF, she also suffers from control issues and a serious obsessive/compulsive disorder. She therefore spins out after noticing that fellow CF patient Will Newman (Cole Sprouse), lucky enough to have been accepted into an experimental drug trial, isn’t honoring the contract by keeping up with his treatment regimen.
Stella is appalled. How can he be so defeatist?
Will, just shy of 18, is cynical, can’t be bothered, and resigned to an early death; he conceals such apathy behind snarky ’tude and foolhardy behavior. Stella’s perkiness drives him crazy.
Naturally, they fall in love.
Sprouse handles Will’s transformation persuasively; it certainly doesn’t happen quickly. He tolerates her helicoptering, if only to calm her down; she puts up with his constant efforts to bait her. Sprouse easily projects the laid-back, mildly rebellious insouciance of a kid who might have developed into a minor bad boy, under different circumstances. Yet we can tell that Will actually has a soft heart; he’s simply afraid to expose it.
Moises Arias, well remembered from 2013’s under-appreciated The Kings of Summer, is a hoot as Stella’s mischievous best friend and fellow CF patient, Poe. He gets both the best one-liners and the most sage bits of wisdom: a romantic who nonetheless has commitment issues. His unwillingness to fall in love is cruelly pragmatic: He knows, when they all turn 18, that their generous healthcare benefits will all but evaporate (an excellent example of this film’s soft messaging).
How could he possibly saddle a soul mate with the resulting financial burden?
Kimberly Hebert Gregory is solid as the attentive Nurse Barb: no-nonsense on the surface, while also deeply compassionate. We realize, over time, that she has watched too many CF patients die; she compensates by strictly enforcing all the rules designed to minimize dangerous exposure. At the same time, she’s perceptive; her heart clearly aches, over the obvious direction in which matters are progressing for Stella and Will.
Parminder Nagra revisits her early days on television’s ER, as the ward’s attentive Dr. Noor Hamid: a role she plays with the conviction of considerable practice.
At times, Baldoni’s film has the quiet intimacy of a stage play, in part because most of the story takes place within only a few hospital rooms and hallways; even so, the drama never feels claustrophobic. Cinematographer Frank G. DeMarco makes clever use of his wide-angle lens, with Stella and Will frequently separated, of necessity, to the extreme edges of the screen.
Indeed, all the essential elements are in place: The cast persuasively inhabits the well-conceived characters, and the plot moves in a reasonable direction … until the third-act aberration that damn near ruins everything. Fortunately, all concerned recover nimbly, in part because of a climactic revelation on par — for lump-in-the-throat poignancy — with the quite similar “discovery” that concludes 2015’s Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.
Along with the heartbreaking, eternally relevant message I still vividly recall from 1973’s A Touch of Class.
Five Feet Apart is a pleasant surprise: undeniably melancholy — the nature of the beast — but also quite beguiling.
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