Review: The Last Five Years

PHOTO CREDIT: OFFICIAL MOVIE POSTER

BY SARAH SHARPE

Ever since I first heard that filming for the movie adaptation of the heartbreaking Off-Broadway musical by Jason Robert Brown began in 2013, I was excited; not because of Anna Kendrick, who was cast as the female lead, Cathy Hiatt, but because of the man who was going to play opposite her, Tony-nominated Jeremy Jordan as Jamie Wellerstein. Three years ago, I had the honor of seeing Jordan as Jack Kelly in Newsies on Broadway and fell in love with him. He’s not only an incredible actor and singer, but the emotion he brings to every single performance is unparalleled–a fact that is completely evident in this film. The trailer then came out two months ago and I started counting down the days until February 13th. On Friday night, I sat down to watch what I definitely now consider “my favorite movie musical of all time”.

The Last Five Years is a very unconventional piece of theatre, in which Jamie tells his side of the story from beginning to end while Cathy tells her side from end to beginning. They only meet up in the middle when with Jamie’s proposal and the wedding. With a storytelling structure as complex as this, it can get very confusing to the uninformed viewer. However, director Richard LaGravenese employs some very clever visual tactics to make the transitions easier to follow. Anytime the beginning of Cathy and Jamie’s relationship is shown, the setting is sunnier and their clothes are more colorful. Towards the end of their relationship, the figurative black cloud translates onto the sets and costumes, giving those scenes a much darker tone.

The beauty of the film doesn’t stop there, though. While I knew that Jordan was going to be fantastic, I was also, again, very pleasantly surprised by Kendrick’s performance. (It’s probably a horrible thing to say, but I feel as though I automatically give her a bad rep for being in Twilight.) After a stunning performance in Into the Woods, she once again amazed me. The first song of the movie shows Cathy alone in her apartment, reading a letter that Jamie wrote to her, telling her he wants a divorce. The tears start rolling down Cathy’s cheeks as she laments about how horrible her husband is for deciding to leave her (“Still Hurting”). In her next song, “See, I’m Smiling”, Cathy fights one last time with Jamie to try to make their marriage work. Cathy is a struggling actress and Jamie is a successful writer. Throughout the movie, Kendrick makes it so easy to sympathize with her character as she watches the fame and fortune go to her husband’s head.

Jordan’s performance, on the other hand, has me crying just thinking about it. He played the leader of a strike in Newsies and a cold-blooded killer in Bonnie and Clyde, but something about seeing him play an ordinary guy watching his relationship slip through his fingers, craving satisfaction at every turn, made me appreciate him as an actor that much more. You want to feel for him, but when he’s being disloyal to his wife, cheating on her while she’s doing summer stock in Ohio, you can’t help but hate him.

No matter your own personal feelings toward Jamie, though, it’s hard to deny that Jordan is a rockstar. In his first three songs, “Shiksa Goddess”, “Moving Too Fast”, and “The Shmuel Song”, Jordan emits this pure feeling of happiness and joy. Everything is going his way and his love for his girlfriend couldn’t be stronger. The smile on his face in these three numbers is so insanely contagious. In his third-to-last song, though, is where Jordan really shines. As Jamie pleads with his wife to understand his point-of-view, the raw emotion he conveys is so genuine, despite how harshly he’s speaking (“If I Didn’t Believe in You”). His following song, “Nobody Needs to Know”, depicts Jamie as a broken and distraught man. Jordan plays this beautifully.

Everything about this musical is perfect, but the final song has to be one of the most emotionally destroying finales I’ve ever seen. As Cathy is beginning to fall head-over-heels in love with Jamie, Jamie is leaving Cathy for the final time. The combined lyrics of “Goodbye until Tomorrow” and, solely, “Goodbye” are so smart. LaGravenese’s direction for this scene brought me chills. While Cathy and Jamie are both singing their respective parts, Jamie is remembering the beginning of their relationship…where Cathy currently is in the musical. The final shot of the movie shows Jamie leaving the apartment and Cathy walking into it later that day to find the note that Jamie wrote.

While this movie is currently not playing in any movie theaters in Florida, it is available on iTunes and On Demand. I highly recommend buying or renting it. I do understand why the movie got a very limited release though; the idea is something I believe only die-hard musical theatre fans will appreciate. However, it is definitely worth the watch for anyone who appreciates a beautiful and heartbreaking love story. If there’s anything this movie teaches us, it’s that we’re all human, we all make mistakes, and we all feel the need to be loved.