Five Feet Apart (2019)

Directed by: Justin Baldoni | 116 minutes | drama, romance | Actors: Haley Lu Richardson, Cole Sprouse, Moises Arias, Kimberly Hebert Gregory, Parminder Nagra, Claire Forlani, Emily Baldoni, Gary Weeks, Cynthia Evans, Brett Austin Johnson, Ariana Guerra, Sophia Bernard, Evangeline Hill, Ivy Dubreuil, Kristopher Perez, Cecilia Leal, Trina LaFargue

Films about young adults who are sick and in love are almost a genre in themselves within young adult productions. ‘Five Feet Apart’ is no exception and fits neatly into the list of ‘The Fault in Our Stars’, ‘Now Is Good’, ‘Everything, Everything’ and ‘Me Before You’. They are films that seem to have been made almost exclusively with the aim of making the viewer burst into tears. There is not always a happy ending and the young adults are mostly as normal as possible, apart from their illness. There should also always be a ‘quirky’ best friend as a sidekick. ‘Five Feet Apart’ ticks all the checkboxes. Does that make it a bad movie? Certainly not.

‘Five Feet Apart’ is about Stella, a seventeen-year-old girl who has spent half her life in hospitals. She has Cystic Fibrosis, a cystic fibrosis. It makes it difficult to lead a normal life, as we see in the opening scene, where her friends visit her before they leave for a party, which Stella has been the driving force behind. In addition to being a CF patient, Stella is also a self-proclaimed OCD-er. Her obsessive-compulsive disorder means that everything has to be done her way and she sticks strictly to her medication schedule. When she meets new patient Will on her way to the incubator ward, who lends his room to two friends who know how to spend time in Will’s hospital bed, her spines immediately stand out. Still, the two start talking and Stella notices that Will does not support his treatment at all. They strike a deal: Will sticks to his treatment schedule, takes the meds on time, and in return gets to sign Stella. There is one caveat: because they are both CF patients, they must always keep their distance. So far, so Romeo & Juliet.

Anyone with even a bit of film experience already knows how this story will go: Will and Stella fall in love, have to deal with the necessary bumps and possibly even end up in mortal danger. What makes ‘Five Feet Apart’ stand out from the crowd is the no-nonsense approach to the disease (thanks in part to Stella’s YouTube vlogs) and the chemistry between the two sympathetic actors. Cole Sprouse and Haley Lu Richardson are a lot of fun together. You wish these two love birds their happiness and the unfairness of everything radiates from it. There is also a strong role for Kimberly Hebert Gregory as nurse Barb, who would prefer to move the two to different wards to avoid making each other sick.

Although ‘Five Feet Apart’ is certainly predictable at some points, the scenario also has some nice surprises in store. For example, the way in which the first date goes, and in particular the solution that Stella comes up with for not being able to touch each other, is inventive. This produces a moving and even slightly erotic scene at the edge of the pool. Haley Lu Richardson shows a wide spectrum of emotions anyway and lifts every scene she is in. ‘Five Feet Apart’ may be sentimental and not much off the beaten track, but at the heart of this film is a warm, believable story, with a clear message: life is over before you know it, don’t waste a second by.