dir. Justin Baldoni
Stella and Will are two teenagers with cystic fibrosis, who must stay at least six feet away from each other (and any cystic fibrosis patient) for safety. When they meet on their hospital ward, they begin to fall in love. They fall in love despite Stella’s only personality trait being “controlling”, and Will not even really having a personality at all. They fall in love despite the tragedy of losing a fellow patient and friend about as one-dimensional as themselves, with his only personality trait appeared to be “gay”. And they fall in love despite the limitations imposed on them by the distancing rules, even though anyone watching can accurately glean that these rules have not been portrayed in a truthful way – and indeed, real doctors have denounced Five Feet Apart for how poorly it depicts the reality of living with cystic fibrosis. No one in the film is remotely likeable or relatable, meaning the primary focus of the film – Stella and Will’s love – is flimsy and unconvincing. Serious illness is downplayed and romanticised in favour of saccharine contrivances and tired platitudes (“I’m tired of living without really living”, “God, you are beautiful, and brave”). This film takes real-life difficulty and commoditises it, transforming it into something fluffy and digestible for the masses. Somewhat ironically, watching Five Feet Apart is a genuinely sickening experience.
BMDb 