Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		2.5

The Last Five Years Blu-ray Movie Review

Not a waste of time.

Reviewed by Martin Liebman April 19, 2015

The Last Five Years, directed by Richard LaGravenese, (P.S. I Love You), doesn't reinvent the Musical, but it does modernize it. It tells a cutting-edge story of love in a fast-paced world, filled with temptations, easy separations, and contrasting wants and desires. She wants to settle down and jumpstart her career. His lives in the fast lane and doesn't have time to share the simple pleasures with her. The film's core duality isn't dramatically novel, but it's given a boost of emotional ups and downs by way of scene specific and plot-driving songs, penned by Jason Robert Brown and the film based on his production. The film additionally works back and forth across the same timeframe, with her perspectives beginning at the end and moving back to the beginning and his starting at the beginning and moving to the end. It offers an interesting contrast and reinforces the idea that he always looks forward and she, while looking backwards through their relationship, is depicted remembering the good rather than the bad and the idea that he's ready to go and she's not.

"Make up your mind."

Cathy (Anna Kendrick) is a struggling actress who one day meets Jamie (Jeremy Jordan), an up-and-coming college dropout novelist. The two New Yorkers hit it off immediately; the love is hot and the feelings are new. She can't help but love him, and he's thrilled to have broken free from family tradition, dating outside his culture. While she works hard to land a part -- any part -- and travels to Ohio to work a small production, he finds more and more success in his writing until his novel is picked up by a major publisher and he becomes an overnight sensation. Slowly, his fame comes between them. He'd rather spend time at lavish events in his honor, and she'd rather be alone with him. She only has eyes for him, but he sees temptation in every skirt that crosses his path, many of which are suddenly interested in him now that his name is on the cover a book and on the top of the bestseller list. Nevertheless, the relationship pushes forward with marriage. Can she learn to be only a part of his whirlwind existence rather than the center of his world, and can he learn to prioritize her over his career? Or does fate have something else in mind?

This isn't The Sound of Music or any other more traditionally woven Musical. It's not even the updated Annie, which also takes place in New York. While both of those films deal in challenging issues, The Last Five Years offers a much more intimate, personal narrative rather than the broader, sweeping, multi character approach that seems to dominate many Musicals. Though small in scope, this production offers a tangled web of complex personal issues that essentially boil down to two people who share a love that's interrupted by success and the fallout that comes with the rising incompatibility that grows with them, as they progress in life both as individuals and as a couple, as life brings them together but their choices and priorities slowly push them apart. The story presents with intense emotions on both sides, blunt conversation and song, and a bit of colorful language on top. The narrative is shaped almost entirely through song; there's very little traditional dialogue or narrative construction outside the many numbers, and it's effective in allowing the performers to display added raw emotion in the range of song performance, from soft and affectionate to harsh and hurting. The music and performances help energize a fairly routine core narrative, and the film, then, relies entirely on its two leads to make the movie.

Anna Kendrick and Jeremy Jordan share a closely-knit chemistry in the film. She's particularly strong, capable of displaying a broad range of emotion not only through her lyrical vocalizations but in the eyes that, scene to scene and moment to moment, convey her feelings as strongly as, if not more deeply than, the lyrics. Whether deep, loving affection; unbridled passion; growing unease and discomfort; anger and resentment; or unhinged sorrow; she delivers a fully capable, emotive, and nuanced effort as a person who, in the span of five years, journeys through a familiar arc of high spirits brought by love but slowly pushed down to the lowest feelings of despair. Jeremy Jordan's character isn't quite so outwardly emotional, playing things a little more evenly but with an evident sincerity and at the same time, lingering doubt about what he's doing, about whether he really can have his proverbial cake and eat it, too, meaning whether he's truly capably of juggling career success, marriage, and the various temptations that arise for him to stray or leave. Both actors are at their best when it's their body language conveying the emotions rather than the words they sing, but combined they're a hefty, healthy force of raw dramatic storytelling that makes the movie a satisfying success where convention says it should otherwise be another throwaway story of good love gone bad.

The Last Five Years Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

The Last Five Years' 1080p transfer isn't a stunner, but it satisfies core requirements. It's a little soft and shy with some lightly smudgy edges -- look at some of the vegetation in the Ohio sequences -- and foreground details that never quite reach razor-sharp status. Clothing details, whether rough leather jackets or woven sweaters, don't offer very much in the way of pinpoint, tactile textures. Faces are pasty and also lack absolute precision. General supportive pieces around the apartment or seen during parties, such as liquor bottles, offer acceptable detail. Colors are decent, with bright natural greens leading the charge, again in those Ohio exteriors. Some clothing hues offer a bit more variety, but there's a certain drabness to much of the movie. Black levels are a little pale, and flesh tones too could use a dabble of warmth. Light banding and noise appear with some regularity.

The Last Five Years Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The Last Five Years features a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 lossless soundtrack. The film opens with a good, light barrage of city ambience -- passing traffic, sirens, honking horns, chatty pedestrians, chirping birds -- that effortlessly fill the stage, and the back speakers in particular. These effects, and a few more, such as a helicopter buzzing in the back in one shot, are constants throughout. The name of the game, however, is music. There's a good quality balance to it, remaining largely up front and featuring robust, accurate notes throughout, whether the sharper, more aggressive numbers or the lighter bits that can go either cheery or dark. There's a positive natural flow to the music, also featuring commendable instrumental clarity and a balanced low end support. Lyrics at the top, particularly from Cathy, can go a little sharp, but for the most part both song and the occasional spoken word play with good, natural clarity from the front-middle portion of the stage.

The Last Five Years Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Last Five Years contains the following simple extras:

• Sing-Along Subtitles.
• A Conversation with Composer/Lyricist Jason Robert Brown (1080p, 3:57).

The Last Five Years Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

The Last Five Years doesn't earn any points for core drama creativity -- audiences have been down this road and back in any number of films, and maybe even in their personal lives -- but it's the nuanced performances combined with pointed and soulful lyrics that see the movie rise above type and prove an enjoyable, if not somewhat still superficially cut-and-dry, experience. Anchor Bay's Blu-ray release of The Last Five Years features decent video, good audio, and an unfortunate shortage of extras. Rent it or wait to buy on a good sale.