Five Feet Apart

“Five Feet Apart uses illness as a plot device to heighten emotions rather than simply allowing compelling characters to tell their own stories.”

Title: Five Feet Apart (2019)
Director: Justin Baldoni 👨🏼🇺🇸
Writers: Mikki Daughtry 👩🏼🇺🇸 and Tobias Iaconis 👨🏼🇩🇪🇺🇸

Reviewed by Mimi 👩🏻🇺🇸

Note: This review was commissioned by Lionsgate. The content and methodology remain 100% independent and in line with Mediaversity's non-commissioned reviews.

—SPOILERS AHEAD—

Technical: 3.5/5

Five Feet Apart checks off all the boxes of the young-adult “sick flick” phenomenon about star-crossed relationships involving chronically or even terminally ill teenagers. In the case of Stella and Will, played by Haley Lu Richardson (Columbus) and Cole Sprouse (Riverdale), they meet as cystic fibrosis (CF) patients in the same hospital.

The overly organized Stella initially disapproves of Will’s cavalier attitude toward his diagnosis. He flaunts the rules and sits precariously on rooftop ledges to signal his “bad boy” status. While upholding the facade that she’s not romantically interested in him, Stella convinces Will to take his treatment seriously, offering in return to let him draw her. The contrivance of a bargain that brings them closer hardly seems necessary. Besides, their shared genetic disorder proves to be the real obstacle to their growing attraction to each other: Individuals with CF are discouraged from getting physically close because bacteria in their lungs could easily spread to each other, with potentially fatal consequences.

With such high stakes, Five Feet Apart milks every melodramatic moment of their forbidden love. Despite being too long with a run-time of nearly two hours, the film benefits from the onscreen chemistry between its two leads. The skillful use of perspective in cinematography and editing further conveys feelings of intimacy and, at other times, desperate longing across the actors’ physical distance. The soundtrack, which includes M83’s “Wait,” predictably tugs at the heartstrings. Five Feet Apart never quite escapes the overly sentimental trappings of the genre, though as a tearjerker the movie does exactly what it’s supposed to do.

Gender: 4.5/5
Does it pass the Bechdel Test? YES

Richardson brings a perfect amount of earnestness to her portrayal of Stella, a necessary counterbalance to Sprouse’s aloofness. Just as Stella’s point of view anchors the story, Richardson’s charisma helps to keep viewers invested, even as the narrative goes off the deep end.

Thankfully, the film avoids falling into the trope of a dying girl redeeming a broken man. Even though most of Stella’s conversations with her friends revolve around Will, she’s established an independent following online, where she uses social media to document her day-to-day reality as someone living with CF. A conversation between Stella and her mother alludes to the accidental death of Stella’s older sister Abby and provides insight into her survivor’s guilt. We also see many examples of strong women, from Stella and Will’s doctor (Parminder Nagra) to his mother (Claire Forlani).

Race: 3.5/5

As a supporting Black character, nurse Barb (Kimberly Hebert Gregory) looks after Stella and Will while personifying the force that keeps them apart. For their own safety, she discourages Stella and Will from interacting, which of course only adds to the thrill of their secret meetings in various corners of the hospital. It’s not a role with a lot of depth, but the film makes it a point to humanize healthcare workers, revealing that they too are affected by their patients dying. Amid an otherwise white-led cast, young actors of color fill out roles as Stella and Will’s friends.

Bonus for Disability: +0.50

The film’s depiction of CF stirred debate among advocates. On the one hand, director Justin Baldoni (best known for acting in Jane the Virgin) drew inspiration from YouTuber Claire Wineland, whom he also hired as a consultant for his directing debut. Sadly, she died before the film’s release. As a cystic fibrosis activist, Wineland’s involvement appeared to lend the project legitimacy, while the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation praised Five Feet Apart for helping to increase awareness about not only the disease but also its impact on mental health.

On the other hand, some from within the CF community criticized Five Feet Apart for its ableist message that terminally ill people exist “to make healthy people ‘appreciate their lives’ more.” That framing can be found in Stella’s opening and closing monologues, as well as the film’s title, which focuses on the physical distance that she and Will must maintain from each other, regardless of their obvious desire. As we’re all too familiar with, after living through the spread of COVID-19, a distance of six feet is recommended, but Stella and Will attempt to “reclaim” one foot for themselves. And while the pandemic has normalized social distancing and wearing masks—practices individuals with CF already know to follow—hopefully non-disabled people can learn to do more with their empathy, such as de-centering themselves from conversations about chronic illness.

The film dangles the promise of a lung transplant for Stella, presenting it almost as a cure for the disorder. But many complications can still arise even after the procedure, as in Wineland’s case: She died from a stroke following a lung transplant. Coincidentally, there exists a real-life love story, in which two people with CF met as teenagers, dated against doctor’s orders, and eventually married. Both of them also received lung transplants in their 20s, but for separate reasons died within days of each other. The news outlet’s characterization of their so-called “fairy-tale ending” seems like yet another egregious instance of romanticizing illness. But after reading about the couple’s struggles, I found myself pondering what their experience tells us about the nature of love and what makes life worth living—more so than I did after watching the Hollywood version.

Bonus for LGBTQ: +0.00

Colombian American actor Moisés Arias plays Stella’s best friend Poe, who also happens to be gay. Poe’s dating life comes up frequently, though we never see any of his partners. Undergoing treatment for CF the same time as Stella and Will, Poe embodies a person existing at the intersection of multiple identities—an important reminder in a story about disability. Although Arias does not play Poe as a stereotype, neither does his character survive the film. His dramatic death unfortunately perpetuates the impression of queer characters being “more expendable” than straight ones.

Mediaversity Grade: B 4.00/5

Perhaps the larger issue with the “sick flick” genre is that it tends to present works of fiction written by non-disabled people. As exemplified in Five Feet Apart, illness serves as a plot device to heighten emotions, rather than simply allowing compelling characters, whether sick or not, to tell their own stories.

Like Five Feet Apart? Try these other titles featuring teen characters with disabilities.

Grade: BLiMarch 7, 2019Female/Nonbinary Creator