The Last Five Years

No review content available.

source: The Last Five Years

This movie came on TV tonight; the first off putting signal was seeing Anna Kendrick's name come up in the title roll ,after all, she does top the most annoying actors list quite often. So I thought , what the heck, she was pretty good in that movie with Ryan Reynolds where she has her head placed in the fridge, "The Voices' , but within 10 seconds her voice was so bad I had to reduce the volume level to like 10%. Awful tone, screechy high pitch key, and close to being completely out of tune at times, and that opening song sounded like a thousand others, so ripped off, I am not sure how the copyright lawyers didn't jump on it. Cant really comment on the rest of the movie. Sorry, just couldn't handle it, the awful vocals, and the "woe is me whiny entitlement' attitude of the the next 8 minutes or so.

The songs are at least OK, and musically quite rich - rich enough to bring me to the VOD. The leads are fine, but not (in my opinion) quite as good as some critics. Both voices sound a bit strident to me. But the movie is one of the more unpleasant experiences I've had with a musical. Why? Because in my view, it's an absolutely abysmal premise for a romance. I noted 'spoiler' in my heading, but it really isn't much of one - every review will tell you of the narrative device in the plot, which is that the woman tells the tale in reverse, the man in conventional chronological order. Since the first song ("I'm Still Hurting", one of the better ones) is the break-up song, the audience knows from the get go that it didn't work out - and then has to endure 90 minutes of stops and starts, dashed hope and expectations, missed communications, etc. Who needs this? Love stories are about hope, I blush to say - and when you leave none in the mix, you are setting up the story to fail, no matter how gifted the composer or performers. And that's what happens. It's just a depressing, downbeat experience, and no way to put it any differently.