Delayed Reaction: The Last Five Years

The Pitch: Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan sing for an entire movie!

How I Came Into It: I saw a stage production of this a year ago. It's an impressive musical and I loved the structure. Great songs too. I'm mildly obsessed with Anna Kendrick (I saw Elsewhere and Camp, for god's sake), so seeing this movie was a no-brainer ever since I heard about it.

Why I Saw It: Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan are great, Tony caliber singers and performers. I'm sure that a stage performance of this starring them would blow me away. They both play well on screen too. Director Richard LaGravenese smartly keeps this small. The scenes don't go bigger than in the play. They're just fleshed out some. I glad he kept it mostly musical rather upping the straight dialogue.

Why I Wish I Hadn't: I don't see or read many works before they are adapted into movies. It almost never works in the movie's favor for logical reasons. I mean, a novel was designed as a novel, so it's going to play better as a novel than as a movie almost always. At first glance, you'd think that a play would translate to film better than books due to being live-action and all, but I'd argue it makes it even harder. With books, Filmmakers actually have to work to adapt it into something. With plays, they often think all they have to do is put the thing on film and their work is done. That's pretty much the issue with The Last Five Years. It feels like a play and it's so much better suited as one. A lot of the novelty of individual scenes is lost when not limited to the stage.

Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend