The Last Five Years; let your heart sing.

I have always loved staged musicals. There's something so powerful in telling a story through song; the character's emotions and conflicts are emphasized even more through dynamics and note variation. The mere tune of a song tells a story on its own. So when I began to watch the movie adaptation of The Last Five Years I knew the story would be that much more incredible.

I never saw the musical when it was on Broadway, but I am very familiar with the soundtrack and plot. So I was very excited to watch the film after much anticipation!!

The Last Five Years, originally written and composed by Jason Robert Brown, first premiered at Chicago's Northlight Theatre in 2001 and then in March 2002 was then produced Off-Broadway. Ever since then, there have been many productions all over the world. Richard LaGravenese wrote the screenplay and directed the movie adaptation, which was released on February 13th.

The story follows Cathy Hiatt, a struggling actress (played by Anna Kendrick) and Jamie Wellerstein, a hit novelist (played by Jeremy Jordan) in the rise and fall of their five-year relationship. The concept of the whole musical/film is very interesting because the story is not told chronologically; Jamie's story starts at the beginning of their relationship and progresses to him leaving her, while Cathy's story begins right after their divorce and goes backward to their first date. It is not until the middle of the movie when they become married that their stories (and emotions toward one another) start to converge.

What I love most about The Last Five Years is how real the interactions are. Since the story is purely about their relationship, the writing really delves into their character development and makes for a really beautiful story.

I highly recommend that you watch this movie! It is playing in select theaters and is available for rent & purchase on iTunes.

Here is the trailer for those of you interested!

Rocket Science

Rocket Science is an independent film that premiered at Sundance in 2007. It focuses on the coming-of-age of Hal Hefner (Reece Thompson), a high school student, who is fighting to prove his intelligence and have his voice heard. Hal's biggest issue is his relentless stutter. Although he is in reality, very intelligent, Hal cannot seem to convey this through speech, due to his impediment. Everything suddenly changes however, the day Ginny Ryerson (Anna Kendrick) sits down next to him on the bus. Ginny, an extremely well spoken senior with high career pursuits, and also happens to be the captain of the high school’s debate team. She notices Hal’s struggles and tells him that she can transform his speech through debating. Hal takes her word for it, and they become partners on the team. However, with each meeting, Hal's debating skills do not seem to be improving, though his love for Ginny is growing. Hal begins to hit a very low point in his life. He continues to visit Ginny's house everyday, to attempt to profess his love for her, but she does not get the hint, and eventually starts dating a boy who is on a rival debate team. Hal learns that he will not be able to see Ginny anymore, but still decides to go through with the debate, though gets nervous at the last minute and loses composure. He does not continue with the debate team after that, since all his hope has been shattered. At the end of the movie, we see Hal wander into a pizzeria and finally order pizza- something he had never been able to do before.

 Overall, I enjoyed this movie. It was a sweet story about trying to overcome hardships, while still maintaining to be realistic, in the sense that Hal was not able to overcome his speech impediment fully, but his hard work made him realize that it was something that he could improve over time. The one thing I was not satisfied with however was the ending. I feel like it kind of lacked closure. We never really found out if Ginny and Hal made up with each other, and though we see that Hal is able to do something that he was never able to do before, it still seemed very unsatisfyingly open ended.

THE ONLY NARRATIVE FILM I WILL EVER BLOG ABOUT

Ladies and gentleman, as the title suggests this weeks blog post is treading into uncharted territory were none of my blog posts have dared to go before, yes I am talking about....

Also if you haven't seen the trailer yet, I am going to post it below this and then proceed to tell you why I am particularly excited for this film by using both examples from the soundtrack and visual that director, Mr. Rob Marshall has created. 

Below is the trailer....

 

This trailer is a prime example of the reason why I am so excited for this movie. If you study the visual style that Mr. Marshall employs throughout the film, it is meticulously and delicately articulate in such a way that might draw to comparisons to such masters of the visual world of film like Baz Lurhmann. Also, Mr. Marshall does something amazing as demonstrated in the clip below. I'll let you watch the clip before I tell you what it is.  

As you can see in the clip, Mr. Marshall is keenly aware that the action is stopped by Cinderella's song and that the song is functioning as an internal dialogue between what the character wants for herself. So what does Mr. Marshall do, he completely freezes the action around Cinderella in order to allow us to begin to get inside of what the character is thinking or feeling, something that the medium of film often eschews. It is this kind of genius thinking that has me hoping that this stage to screen adaption will be successful.  

Also, the soundtrack of the film is another appealing aspect of the movie. Above is the full version of On the Steps of the Palace as sung by the Anna Kendrick. The music and lyrics and film scoring are handled by one of arguably the most talented and beautiful composer for musical theatre Stephen Sondheim. And yet, even though not on the stage but rather the screen, the music still soars high, a true gem of any Sondheim musical if ever there was one. 

Because Mr. Marshall has adapted Chicago from the stage to the screen and done it very successfully I am beyond excited to see what he is going to do with Into the Woods. 

And so it is for these reasons that I say: INTO THE WOODS AND OUT OF THE WOODS AND HAPPY EVER AFTER!!!!