Five Feet Apart

The cystic fibrosis-themed romantic drama Five Feet Apart feels like a real evolution in the sick teen movie genre, because it’s actually a great movie that just happens to be about sick teens, and it doesn’t condescend or try to cheer up anyone.

The film’s final act stretches credulity and hangs its hat on an impossibly (albeit suitably Harlequin-esque and dreamy) farewell sequence. Still, it’s all but certain the intended audience will find in Five Feet Apart a cogent and watchable weepie worthy of marquee status at sleepovers.

Five Feet Apart’s final half-hour is disappointing and frustrating – and it has nothing to do with the eventual fates of the characters or their romance. What’s bothersome is that, after spending nearly 90 minutes of meticulously developing a sensitive, honest relationship between two ships passing in the night, the movie takes a turn into the ridiculous.

Fresh off of memorable supporting parts in “The Edge of Seventeen” and “Support the Girls,” Richardson gives a star turn every bit as charismatic and assured as the film is formulaic and forgettable, bringing soul, style and nuance to a character that could have easily been a condescending caricature.

Full disclosure: I am so not the target demographic for Five Feet Apart, a mushy, three-hankie weeper that is aimed squarely between the eyes of every 15-year-old girl.

Five Feet Apart, with its phoney emotions and baloney contrivances — these love-struck kids can’t even hold hands let alone get to first base because two people with cystic fibrosis aren’t allowed to touch — just didn’t do the job for me.

On paper, Five Feet Apart has all of the components to fit squarely into the sub-genre of films that have come before it. In execution, the teen romance never packs the emotional wallop it so obviously, self-satisfyingly, believes it does.

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

I hate sappy movies, but this is no sappy movie. The genuine emotions this film conveys will penetrate all except the most hardened of hearts. It had me in its grip every minute of the way.

Romantic drama about two people with the same terminal illness. Touching and humorous at times, though missing a certain quality that I'm having a hard time putting my finger on. It's not the acting, but maybe it's just that the Fault in our Stars is the better movie in every way.

Five Feet Apart is the yearly teen romance film that has been done a dozen times before, and will be done a dozen times more. I do think that it is better than the past few teen romances that I've watched, but at the end of the day the best one of these films can be (outside of The Spectacular Now) seems to be average quality. I enjoyed it because it's a crowd pleaser, but I won't be thinking about it much come tomorrow. I will say I really loved the final shot before the credits rolled. They nailed that, at least.

the film depends a lot on personal emotional, contains many clichés, the really begins between the true beginning and the middle.