![]() ![]() So, then, Five Feet Apart - the first feature from actor-turned-director Justin Baldoni - is an unusually chaste teen romance: no kissing, no sex, nothing more than heartfelt conversations and glances of longing and despair. Soon enough, though, it’s all hearts and tummies aflutter… except, as two people with CF, they cannot touch, should not even get within six feet of each other, because of the high possibility of them cross-infecting each other’s uniquely susceptible lungs with their uniquely damaging viruses. He initially rubs Stella the wrong way for reasons that aren’t at all clear in this first screenplay from writers Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis *, except, perhaps, to keep the movie from rushing too quickly into their romance. He’s a floppy-haired bad boy–slash–secretly vulnerable artist, and he’s in for treatment of bug that is particularly virulent for CF patients. Stella is sweet and cute, but also tough and resilient, and a pleasure to spend time with Richardson is genuinely charming.Īnd then Will (Cole Sprouse: TV’s Riverdale, The Master of Disguise) arrives. ![]() Her best friend, Poe (Moises Arias: Pitch Perfect 3, Ben-Hur), another CF kid, is right across the hall, and they do have fun. (This may be the first example of the tragic-teen romance in which the hospital is as pretty as the patients.) She may have a disease that could kill her at any moment, and probably will before she’s 40, but she’s still chipper as hell, like in her YouTube diary entries in which she documents her disease and her treatment: dozens of pills every day regular episodes of hacking up all that phlegm etc. Her space is festooned with posters and artwork by friends and family, and brightened up with fairy lights her bed is covered in her own colorful sheets and blankets, not the dreary institutional ones. She is stuck in a hospital as Five Feet Apart opens, and she’s clearly been there a while: she has made herself quite at home in her room. As we will learn in this latest would-be weepy/gentle medical lesson, CF sufferers can often look and seem quite healthy, but their lives are punctuated by extended hospital stays when symptoms flare up or one of those infections strikes.Īnd so it is with 17-year-old Stella (Haley Lu Richardson: Split, The Edge of Seventeen). The disease of the week this time out is - *spins the wheel of misfortune* - cystic fibrosis, the genetic condition that, among other horrors but most notably, causes one’s lungs to produce prodigious amounts of mucous and leads to frequent life-threatening lung infections. ![]() Oh hey it’s this year’s tragic-teen romance, about beautiful sensitive adolescents falling in love while dying prettily. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |