Five Feet Apart

Five Feet Apart follows Haley Lu Richardson’s Stella and Cole Sprouse’s Will as they find themselves falling for one another, with the only hitch in their burgeoning romance a cystic fibrosis diagnosis that forces them to keep a specific amount of space between them. It becomes clear early on that Five Feet Apart benefits substantially from the almost unreasonably charismatic work of its two stars (and the undeniable chemistry between their respective characters), as the movie is otherwise a familiar and fairly cliched endeavor that often seems to have emerged directly from a template for stories of this ilk – with the less-than-innovative atmosphere compounded by an erratically-paced narrative and overlong running time (ie the episodic midsection is just about as erratic as one could envision, certainly). There’s nevertheless little doubt that the picture effectively manages to sustain one’s interest from start to finish, as filmmaker Justin Baldoni does a surprisingly stellar job of transforming even the most minor of periphery characters into fully-realized (and impressively sympathetic) individuals (eg Stella and Will’s hard-as-nails nurse becomes more than just a paint-by-numbers authority figure) – with, of course, the movie anchored by Richardson and Sprouse’s completely captivating work here. And although Baldoni, working from Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis increasingly pulls out all the stops in terms of tugging at the viewer’s heartstrings, Five Feet Apart closes with an emotionally devastating final stretch that admittedly packs one heck of a potent punch – which ultimately confirms the film’s place as a conventional yet thoroughly effective (and affecting) young-adult drama.

***1/2 out of ****