Title: Five Feet Apart
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Director: Justin Baldoni
Starring: Haley Lu Richardson, Cole Sprouse, Moises Arias
Runtime: 1 hr 56 mins

What It Is: Stella (Richardson) is a young girl suffering from CF (cystic fibrosis). This disease is defined as “affecting the cells that produce mucus, sweat, and digestive juices. It causes these fluids to become thick and sticky. They then plug up tubes, ducts, and passageways.” When she’s hospitalized, as she often is, she meets the brooding young man Will (Sprouse). The two use their similar experiences and styles of dealing with it and form a bond. One even their disease cannot circumvent.

What We Think: Let’s just go on ahead and get this out of the way. This is a very bad film. Haley Lu Richardson has been in bad movies before (lookin’ at you The Bronze) and she has proven to be a fantastic actress. No different here. She elevates the subpar material, something Cole Sprouse does not have the talent to do. There’s a huge void in the narrative in that the script just isn’t any good. One thing the film has going for it is its soundtrack. M83 brings the sultry “Wait” and Daughter brings two amazing tracks, for me though it’s the English indie/pop artist Birdy covering one of my favorite songs “The District Sleeps Alone Tonight” by The Postal Service. My god is the music in this film a juxtaposition to the accompanying film. Weakly directors and equally phoned in acting wise outside of Richardson. A bad movie badly made.

Our Grade: D, So sometimes it’s okay to deal in romance tropes other times it just seems like your riffing (badly) on the themes in The Fault in Our Stars. Look, look what we have here. Sick kids falling in love and maybe, just maybe something happens to one of them. Rinse and repeat. I cannot recommend this and if my romance lovin’ ass can’t give it a recommendation then there’s no way you need to see it.