‘Five Feet Apart’: A kiss to die for
Five Feet Apart Rated: PG-13 for thematic elements, language and suggestive material. Running time: 116 minutes. ★★ 1⁄2 out of 4
In “Five Feet Apart,” two young people fall in love, but they know: If they kiss each other, they’re both going to die.
There’s a precedent for this, of sorts: In film noir, we know that kissing is the irrevocable step that leads men and women to the grave. The difference is that we want Robert Mitchum to say, “Baby, I don’t care.” We want him to kiss Jane Greer, even though we know what it means. But with “Five Feet Apart,” we get the heebiejeebies every time Haley Lu Richardson and Cole Sprouse get anywhere near each other.
Except for a 10-minute interlude in which the two young lovers go for a walk, “Five Feet Apart” takes place entirely in a hospital ward, where Stella (Richardson) and Will (Sprouse) are both being treated for cystic fibrosis. She has it bad and is on the list to get a lung transplant. But he has it even worse. He is getting special treatment for a virulent bacteria that makes him ineligible for a transplant.
As we learn very early in “Five Feet Apart,” cystic fibrosis patients need to be kept away from each other — at least six feet apart — because if they trade infections, it could be fatal. The five-feet rule that the two develop in the movie is the lovers’ small act of rebellion. They steal back one foot as a way of asserting mastery over their disease.
For all audiences, the situation presented in “Five Feet Apart” is frustrating and poignant — two beautiful teenagers, and they can’t touch each other. But it’s easy to imagine the movie’s effectiveness will be stronger with viewers so young that they’ll want the two to touch each other, anyway. That’s the true market for this picture, teenagers who think you can say “Baby I don’t care” to a fatal infection and come out ahead on the deal.
Everyone else may watch “Five Feet Apart” in a state of preoccupation, only half listening as the two go on revealing their deepest emotions, while we notice that, actually, they’re more like four and a half feet apart; and that Sprouse is a lot taller than Richardson, which means that gravity makes it more likely for him to get her sick than vice versa.
Yet even this is proof that the movie has something, because we don’t want them to get sick — or rather, sicker. We become especially concerned about Stella, who really does seem as wonderful as Will thinks she is. Haley Lu Richardson is a glowing screen presence, full of wit, mischief, concern, feeling and intelligence. A few years ago, she showed a lot of promise in “Edge of Seventeen,” cast in a supporting role. She delivers on that promise here.
But still, halfway through “Five Feet Apart,” you may start wishing these two would either kiss or get off the pot. The screenplay, by Mikki Daughtry and Tobias Iaconis, is fairly inventive at manufacturing a series of ups and downs for the lovers, despite the constricted setting. They hit all the stations — the initial antagonism, the getting to know each other, the fake crisis and happy reconciliation. They even give Stella a gay best friend (Moises Arias). But at 116 minutes, “Five Feet Apart” is too much of a just-OK thing.
All the same, I want to see Haley Lu Richardson’s next movie.