The Last Five Years (2014)

Having seen an amazing production of this in Auckland (Last Tapes Theatre Company), this much more expensive, full blown movie fell flat for me. I think Jason Robert Brown's musical was ultimately misunderstood here.

The structure in the original is that they sing solo, him starting at the start, her at the end, they meet in the middle when they get married and share their only duet, and then spin off into solo again. Although "together", each is alone inside his/her own emotions, and although trying to connect, they constantly miss each other. Only when they are getting married and singing a duet are they really in sync. The movie muddled this by trying to have both him and her taking part in every song throughout. An acting challenge that failed :/ The best moments were when they were singing to no one in particular, for her it was "Jamie is over and Jamie is done" and for him "Hold on, the panic recedes". This was when the actors were finally allowed to perform the songs the way they were supposed to be performed.

Basically, I thing the focus of each song is supposed to be on the subjective experience. But the movie missed this point, and tried to make every song mimic a real life conversation. This failed, although you could see how hard both actors were trying. The chemistry was very forced. Singing a conversation is awkward enough, but the lyrics are so deep and vulnerable, no one would say those things aloud. It was especially awkward when they were sung at his friends in a bar or at reporters at a party. Those poor extras on the receiving end of the songs didn't know what to do with themselves. The songs are meant to be confidante confessions to the audience, coming from deep within the characters, obviously not casual conversation. In general, the misunderstanding of the unique genre and structure of the original transformed The Last Five Years into a cringey, low-level musical.

The original is actually more a song cycle, it has virtually no spoken dialogue, like an opera. And it creates the same height of emotion as opera does. Performed, even if the director lacks creativity to make it come alive believably, it should at least not distract us from the amazing poetry in the lyrics. But there was a lot of (really crappy) dialogue inserted, a lot of unnecessary shots of miscellaneous stuff that was really distracting during the singing.

Instead of an incredibly powerful set of insights into how relationships dissolve, this was just another Hollywoody movie about guy meets girl. And what's sad is now the majority will think that that's what The Last Five Years is. But it's actually so much more than that!

Having said that, no matter how badly adapted, I don't think The Last Five Years could ever suck, the score and text is just too amazing and this will shine through. And despite awkwardness, there were some really good moments from both him and her. I would recommend listening to the songs rather than watching this movie though, or better still, try and see it live.

Fmovies: The last five years was an extremely pleasant surprise for me. First of all, you won't enjoy the movie if you watch it without knowing the setting. It's a simple yet wonderful story about a marriage that's falling apart and it is told in a unique way as the wife (Anna Kendrick) tells the story backwards and the husband (Jeremy Jordan) tells it forwards. The songs are wonderful with very smart lyrics, but what really brings this movie to life is it's charismatic talented leads. Anna Kendrick shines in this (it might be my favorite movie of hers so far). I mean what a set of pipes! She is the definition of "triple threat" in this musical. Her acting, singing and dancing are all done to perfection. She also steals the focus in a few of Jordan's songs with her honest portrayal and hilarious reactions. Still I must give Jeremy Jordan props, I've only seen him in Smash and I wasn't really impressed. In this movie though, he proves himself a great actor and performer. I highly recommend this movie to musical lovers like myself. But I'd bet anyone can really enjoy this.

This film tells the story of an actress and her novelist husband, chronicling their encounter, marriage and divorce.

I didn't know "The Last Five Years" is a musical, so I was quite baffled by the initial scene of Anna Kendrick singing for a full five minutes. Then, I get to enjoy many beautiful songs and lovely scenery. Colours are lush, even the trees look very saturated with striking green. It's a beautiful film to watch, but I think there's little emphasis on the plot. There's very little build up of the plot, and the story does not flow to the following segment because every song is just so long. There's just not enough time to fit five years into ninety minutes, especially when every song is at least five minutes long.

On the whole, "The Last Five Years" is a nice film, but I will forget about it on a few months.

The Last Five Years fmovies. I'm giving this a 10 to try to counteract the ratings of most of these reviews. It isn't a standalone movie, and shouldn't be rated as such. It is an adaptation of the stage production almost exactly, and a pretty passable one at that: pretty cinematography, decent performances, and a good reading of the source material. Jeremy's voice is great for the part, and Anna Kendrick is...okay. My actual rating is more like an 8 (because the stage productions I have seen have been more moving, and this one does kind of make it good vs. bad, as opposed to two flawed people breaking). It is a weird film, yes, but not a bad stage production.

I became a fan of L5Y when I saw a regional production in the Berkshires. I instantly fell in love with the songs and the concept. Since then, I have also seen the recent off-Broadway production directed by Jason Robert Brown himself and have listened to the original cast album non-stop. When I heard they were making a movie of this, I was skeptical, because in the show, neither Jaimie nor Cathy ever share scenes together save for one wedding scene in the middle. I was further skeptical when I heard that they were going to have them in every scene together.

Well, I saw the film on demand last night and I have to say, first let's speak about the music. The reason I loved the music so much was because it had such small orchestrations and no drums. I was afraid that adding drums, more strings, and more electric guitar would take away the chamber feel of the sound, but on the contrary, it actually enhanced it. Second of all, they chose two great singers who were able to sing most of the score live, and I have to give props to Anna Kendrick, who is probably the best Cathy I have seen and heard. Also, props for not cutting a single musical number, and they didn't have to because the show was an hour and a half to begin with.

Now for everything else. The new dialog between the songs hardly added anything to the film. I'm mainly concerned with Cathy's dialog during the Shmuel Song. Also, in the play, every song Cathy sang took place when she was going backwards, but a few parts of her songs, mainly "When You Come Home..." and the final part of "Climbing Uphill", seemed to take place in chronological order. Also, that whole fantasy sequence in Shiksa Goddess with all of Jaimie's Jewish girlfriends was way too unnecessary, as was that brief dance scene during "Moving Too Fast".

Other than those things, I thought it was very well done.

You know, the one negative review I read here was that Anna Kendrick was awful. I would like to end those rumors now and say that only in the first song does she kinda suck. Even then it was beautifully acted: just painful to listen to. The only other reason I had to dock a star is that if you don't already know the general premise (she tells it backwards, he tells it forwards), you're screwed. There isn't a more eloquent way to put that. Besides that, this movie is perfect. Miss Kendrick has a very sweet voice that she (usually) knows how to use well, and Jeremy Jordan has one of the most beautiful tenors in the universe. They are both amazing actors, and they let it show. Composer Jason Robert Brown has given us this artwork of a score with whip smart lyrics to match. They take these songs and do what they can't do on stage, mostly to a hilarious effect. As long as you only know to mute the TV during "Still Hurting" (maybe even put Sherie Rene Scott's version on instead?) and the general premise, you're in for a great show.