‘The Last Five Years’
B
“The Last Five Years” is a charming little musical, nothing less or more.
Seeing it is an excuse to watch some great musical numbers performed by great actors. There’s a story, but it isn’t as memorable as the songs and dances that tell it.
Anna Kendrick and Broadway star Jeremy Jordan play Cathy and Jamie, a struggling actor and a successful novelist, respectively.
The film hops around in time as they fall out of and into love, in that order. We learn the whole history of their relationship, backward and forward, before it ties back to the opening of the film.
This film’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. The musical numbers are catchy, emotional and are successfully performed in a vast array of styles. But while these musical numbers tell an effective story, they are not held together well.
The first line of spoken dialogue without music behind happens 15 minutes into the film. The first conversation occurs half an hour into the film. The brief dialogue scenes in between bridge the gaps in story, but they do so poorly.
The nonlinear structure also provides memorable moments, such as the finale, but it also works against the film. The structure first makes the viewer identify with Cathy, then shows her anguish in an argument with Jamie, before cutting to a sequence that asks the viewer to root for Jamie.
Jordan’s exuberance and charisma only barely make this transition work.
Kendrick continues her career in movie musicals with another excellent performance. She hits every high note well and makes Cathy feel like a believable human being.
What the film pulls off completely is the challenge of telling a story with just two primary characters. Cathy and Jamie’s relationship is engrossing and the musical numbers are well paced, so that the film never needs a third singing character to help move things along.
The filmmakers also alternate humor and drama well. There are light musical numbers, often before dark musical numbers, and while the juxtaposition can be jarring, it also provides a welcome break from monotonality.
This film also doesn’t suffer from the process of being adapted from theater to film. The mobile camera work and interesting lighting effects help make this work as a motion picture. The editing also enhances, rather than harms, the abundant musical sequences.
Though certainly entertaining, “The Last Five Years” ultimately felt less like a pearl necklace and more like beautiful pearls on a too-thin cotton string.
