BEFORE: Yesterday's film was kind of on the edge, I mean it's a little questionable whether that one really belonged in February or not - it was by no means a "romance" film, it was more about the inherent danger involved in dating. You could find the person of your dreams, or you could date a psycho killer, that's the game, unfortunately. But it was kind of like a film that fits into a few places, I could just as easily have put it in October and treated it like a serial killer film - I have a similar problem with Christmas-themed romances, should they be watched in February or December? Well, it depends on the linking, really, in which month will they fit in, where is there a space for that one? But then sometimes February will roll around and I'll think, "Nah, that's a Christmas film..." and then December comes and I'll think, "Nah, that's a February romance..." and as a result, the film does not get watched. Look, it's got to go in one place or the other, full stop. But now as a result, I've been all over the place, genre-wise, and it's still only the first week of the romance chain - I've had a rom-com, a family drama, a period drama, a serial killer movie, and today it's a musical. Makes perfect sense.
Anna Kendrick carries over from "Woman of the Hour". Yes, I do have a third Anna Kendrick film on the romance/relationship sub-list, but working that one in seems just a bit counter-productive as I currently have it linking two other films that did NOT make the countdown, and if I should want to go in that direction next year, I will need that film as mortar - maybe that film is really a "brick", I don't know, and maybe I should work it in here and another linking path may be generated in the next few months, there's no way to tell. I have to play the cards I'm dealt and try to leave open the right linking opportunities for the future, though. My mantra is always "Don't worry, this will make more sense tomorrow..." but will it? WILL IT?
THE PLOT: A struggling actress and her novelist husband each illustrate the struggles and deconstruction of their love affair through song.
AFTER: Well, let's hear it for Tubi, which is essentially like the safety school of streaming services. If there's a film that premium cable is ignoring (and there are a lot of those), it could be on Netflix - however some films are only on Netflix for two years, then the contract expires and they go to Hulu. But what happens after that? Exactly. It's really a mixed bag, some films are on AmazonPrime and others get bought up by Apple, but when all else fails, they go to Tubi. Guys, it's FREE with a few ads, why doesn't anybody talk about Tubi? Oh, sorry, it's not COOL like YouTube, and nobody ever invites you over to "Tubi and chill", it's probably more like "Tubi and eat some stale pretzels and let me complain to you about my last few boyfriends" but still, there's an opportunity there, you're going to watch a movie for free, and whatever else the night turns into, that's up to you. Again, safety school, you didn't get into Yale, but hey, you took your shot, and now you're still going to college, and your parents can afford this, try to make the most of it, OK? At least you won't have a crippling student loan burden that will take ten years or more to overcome.
What ended up on Tubi here is a film with exactly ONE star in it, Anna Kendrick - and this came out between "Pitch Perfect" and "Pitch Perfect 2", before that, sure, she had a small role in the "Twilight" movies and that break-out part in "Up in the Air", small roles in "End of Watch" and "Scott Pilgrim", but she wasn't a mega-star yet. This might have even been filmed before "Pitch Perfect", there's no way to tell, it's more like an indie film and it could have spent years in production while somebody tinkered with it, then realized that Kendrick's career was blowing up and they needed to get this out there. But it also illustrates the difference between character actors and background actors - character actors are at least recognizable, they usually have lines and you've seen them in a thousand movies, like Margot Martindale or Stephen Tobolowsky, and they probably get paid better than the people who play "Dancer #4" or "Woman at book signing". Well, the casting director who worked on "The Last Five Years" probably had zero budget, because there aren't even any character actors here, just background ones - as a result the film's credits feel very incomplete, there are a lot of spelling errors in the names and nobody could even be bothered to submit the information to IMDB. Don't worry, it's not like there's some idiot out there who's tracking all the actors for his blog and trying to figure out where he last saw that ukulele player before. And even if there were, eff that guy.
This is based on a stage musical, OF COURSE, and the structure is somewhat unique, at least. On stage the characters always sang separately, and HIS timeline started at the beginning and moved forward while HER timeline started with their spoiler-ish break-up and moved in reverse, and the two timelines meet in the middle when he proposes in Central Park. I think the film shows this event twice so we get it, it's part of both timelines. And then his timeline keeps moving forward toward the break-up and hers keeps moving backwards toward their first date, and this could be easily confused with a film that's just jumping around randomly, so probably on the second viewing if you pay attention you can really figure out what's happening, or rather WHEN it's all happening. Sure, if they started at the beginning, they meet, they move in together, they meet her parents, they deal with all their old relationship issues, his writing career takes off, she does summer stock in Ohio while he's tempted by other women in NYC, they have problems in their marriage (shocker!) and then he moves out, well, we've all seen that a thousand times, right? And some of us lived it two or three times, too. So that would be boring.
But crossing the time-streams after reversing one, well, sure, it's confusing but also more interesting at the same time. The whole things ends rather awkwardly when they sing something like a duet, and hers is more hopeful because she can't wait until she can see him again, and clearly this is the sign of something big, while (?) he's walking out of their apartment with his last packed bag and he's left a note for her inside with all the reasons, claiming that he really really tried but at this point there's no chance of fixing things. The symmetry is absolutely beautiful, because at the start he was the hopeful one, thinking things might be moving a bit too fast but also throwing himself into this new relationship because it's THE ONE, while she's sitting in the dark with the break-up note in front of her, singing "Jamie is over and Jamie is gone, Jamie's decided it's time to move on."
But I don't know, you could end up feeling like you're very tossed around by the whole time thing, and at the end, you could be saying, "What the hell just happened? God, what a relief, it's over." Exactly. That is the feeling one could get right after a break-up - what the hell just happened? Then eventually, it might take a few months, but you might get to "God, what a relief, it's over." and then you're going to replay those road-trips you took and those parties you went to and those fights you had, and guess what? They're not going to be in the right order, inside your head, they're going to be all jumbled up! So, you know, the film gets this exactly right. Moving forward, on your good days maybe you're going to remember the good times, and on your bad days, well, you know, you're going to see those photos in a different light. I have a memory of getting socked in the head with a loaf of white bread on the way to a camping trip with friends, and that was kind of the beginning of the end of that marriage. The camping trip itself was the rest of the end, but that's a whole other story.
This whole story was inspired by the playwright's marriage, and you know, that's what writers do, spin straw into gold, or try to polish a turd, and therefore everything they do becomes grist for the mill. But, funny thing, his ex-wife sued him because she felt that the musical violated the non-disclosure terms of their divorce, and then HE sued HER for interfering with his creative process. There you go, every marriage starts with a contract and ends with a lawsuit. Some elements of the play were therefore changed so that Cathy would not resemble the playwright's ex so much. Now I really want to hear the song that got removed, because I bet there's some real dirt there.
As a stage musical, "The Last Five Years" only ran for two months off-Broadway, but it did get two Drama Desk Awards, so it was at least popular enough to warrant being turned into a film, but clearly there was no budget for more than one professional actor (yes, I said one, not two, name one other movie Jeremy Jordan was in) and I'm willing to bet they spent more money on catering than on the casting. Well, food is expensive and you do have to feed both the cast and the crew. Seriously, though, the entire budget is estimated at $3.5 million and the film grossed under $300,000 - that's not good. I guess it's easy to see how the film ended up on Tubi.
If you really wanted to, there's a list of the songs in the IMDB section in chronological order, so if you were watching on DVD, you could chapter skip and watch everything the way it would be if it were a normal movie, which I would support. I think the only real reason to arrange scenes in a non-chronological order would be to gain some insight by juxtaposing THAT scene with THAT OTHER one, and honestly I don't think that theory applies here. The formation and dissolution of a relationship is so universal that our minds can essentially understand what came before what, I mean if he's cheating on her, the cheating scene obviously took place before the break-up scene, because if it came after, then that wouldn't be cheating. But you can go around and around on this one if you're looking for the reason why they broke up - and you'll probably land on the fact that HIS career was successful and HERS was not.
Look, life is long and if you live long enough, you may find yourself in some situation like this - you could be the one driving the bus or you could be the one riding in the bus, or you may have different roles in different relationships. This BY ITSELF, the fact that one of the two people is more successful - I can see how this could cause tension but it doesn't always break people up, there are a lot of lifelong relationships where one person makes more money, or is further along in their career, but you know, time goes by and things change and every relationship ultimately ends, it just becomes a question of how. For these two crazy kids, maybe they were young and they just couldn't deal with one of them being more successful than the other. It happens, but we all have to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and maybe try again once we're ready.
This is kind of what we're looking for, here at the Movie Year, when we put together a romance chain. Universal truths - things in a tiny not-often-seen movie that we can all connect with, lessons we can apply to our daily lives that might make it easier for us to endure. Check it out if you can endure the whole non-linear thing and the Jewish song about the tailor that is rather cringe-y.
Directed by Richard LaGravenese (director of "Beautiful Creatures" and "P.S. I Love You")
Also starring Jeremy Jordan, Tamara Mintz, Cassandra Inman, Kate Meltzer, Emma Meltzer, Bettina Bresnan, Charly Bivona, Alex Stebbins (last seen in "The Other Woman"), Lily LaGravenese, Betina Joly, I. Ginzburg, Lisa Herring, Nina Ordman, Robert Immerman, Michael Fawcett, Jerome Schwartz, Bill Hunter, Anna Ackerman, Susan Moses, Marcy Orloff Prastos, Maia Bliskovski, Chelsea Chrostowski, Leah Shapiro, Natalie Knepp (last seen in "Going the Distance"), Marceline Hugot (last seen in "I Don't Know How She Does It"), Wade Dooley, Ashley Spencer, Nic Novicki (last seen in "Marry Me"), Rafael Sardina (last heard in "The Assistant"), Laura Harrier (last seen in "The Starling"), Luis Castro de Leon, Jason Robert Brown (last seen in "tick, tick...BOOM!"), Georgia Stitt (ditto), Meg Carriero (last seen in "The Night Before"), Stephanie Corbett, Kurt Deutsch, Sam Gilroy (last seen in "Beautiful Creatures" (2013)), Randy Redd (ditto), Linda Hendrick, Cat Lynch, Allison Macri, Will MacAdam (last seen in "Wonderstruck"), Sherie Rene Scott (last seen in "P.S. I Love You"), Alan Simpson, Betsy Wolfe, Williemgc (last seen in "Lucky Them")
RATING: 6 out of 10 Shapiros in Washington Heights
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