WHAT'S IT ABOUT
Stella Grant (Haley Lu Richardson) is every bit a seventeen-year-old… she’s attached to her laptop and loves her best friends. But unlike most teenagers, she spends much of her time living in a hospital as a cystic fibrosis patient. Her life is full of routines, boundaries and self-control — all of which is put to the test when she meets an impossibly charming fellow CF patient named Will Newman (Cole Sprouse). There’s an instant flirtation, though restrictions dictate that they must maintain a safe distance between them.
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There's something incredibly charming about Haley Lu Richardson's early portrayal of Stella. Her performance is magnificent as an incredibly strong and focused teen and this is probably both the strength and weakness of Five Feet Apart. All three main actors put in incredible turns here but Richardson's truly takes us into the live-threatening nature of the condition. Which is why, when the film gives way to emotional manipulation, it becomes so very frustrating. It's simply not believable both cerebrally (kids who have been instinctively trained to live their entire lives a certain way throwing caution to the wind easily) or emotionally (because we bought into her strength). Admittedly I'm not the target demographic, but the final act is an exercise in frustration that only the emotionally intense will buy into. Nice but could have been so much better.