Movie Review: Five Feet Apart (2019)

Synopsis: Two teenagers, Stella and Will, dying from cystic fibrosis meet in the hospital and fall in love. However, because of their medical conditions, they must follow strict rules, including staying six feet apart at all times, a rule they decide to defy by taking one foot back.

Who's in it? The movie stars Cole Sprouse, Haley Lu Richardson, Moises Arias, Kimberly Hebert Gregory and Parminder Nagra.

Review: My wife has wanted to see this movie since coming across the trailer some time ago. I finally remembered to add it to our Netflix DVD queue and we took the time to watch it this evening. 

To be honest, the movie is a little predictable. Basically, if you've seen one movie about sick teenagers falling in love, you've seen most of them. However, despite that, I did find I enjoyed this film.

The thing that really stood out for me when it came to this movie was the wide range of emotions Will (Sprouse), Stella (Richardson) and their friend, Poe (Arias) experience throughout. A lot of times, you'll have a movie like this and it will consist of one optimist and one pessimist. This film avoided that and, instead, had the characters have their fair share of good days and bad days. It was a bit more inspiring that way, in my opinion.

Will and Stella's "dates" were also somewhat entertaining, both because of the fact they couldn't leave the hospital and the supervising nurse (Gregory) wanted them to keep their distance because of the possibility of making each other sicker. Watching them grow closer and fall in love without the ability to have any sort of physical contact was definitely a unique love story.

My wife and I both found it somewhat funny the teenagers were able to run around the hospital so easily given their conditions. They were able to leave their rooms for hours at a time and even pull off a birthday party in the cafeteria without any of the nurses noticing their absence. Did that hospital not have any sort of security in it?

As I mentioned before, the movie was a little predictable and, because of it, the ending wasn't anything too surprising. However, I did find I still liked it, mostly because it managed to be both happy and sad at the same time. At minimum, it wasn't the typical tear-jerker ending these films normally have. 

Final Opinion: If you don't like depressing movies, this is probably not the film for you but, if you like romance that defies all odds, then it's worth taking the time to watch it.

My Grade: A