Synopsis
Seventeen-year-old Stella spends most of her time in the hospital as a cystic fibrosis patient. Her life is full of routines, boundaries and self-control — all of which get put to the test when she meets Will, an impossibly charming teen who has the same illness. There's an instant flirtation, though restrictions dictate that they must maintain a safe distance between them. As their connection intensifies, so does the temptation to throw the rules out the window and embrace that attraction.
Your Movie Library
Cast
- Haley Lu RichardsonStella Grant
- Cole SprouseWill Newman
- Moisés AriasPoe Ramírez
- Kimberly Hebert GregoryNurse Barb
- Parminder NagraDr. Noor Hamid
- Claire ForlaniMeredith
- Emily BaldoniJulie
- Gary WeeksTom
- Rebecca ChulewDoctor
- Sue-Lynn AnsariNurse
Recommendations
- 90
Los Angeles Times
The cystic fibrosis-themed romantic drama Five Feet Apart feels like a real evolution in the sick teen movie genre, because it’s actually a great movie that just happens to be about sick teens, and it doesn’t condescend or try to cheer up anyone. - 63
Philadelphia Daily News
The movie is actually not bad, until it goes full Lifetime Channel crazy in the third act. - 60
Variety
Fresh off of memorable supporting parts in “The Edge of Seventeen” and “Support the Girls,” Richardson gives a star turn every bit as charismatic and assured as the film is formulaic and forgettable, bringing soul, style and nuance to a character that could have easily been a condescending caricature. - 60
The New York Times
Richardson, previously wonderful with good material (“Columbus,” “Support the Girls”), here cements her genius status by finding depths beyond the contrived screenplay. - 58
The A.V. Club
Unfortunately, welcome insight into the physical and emotional experience of living with cystic fibrosis eventually gives way to increasingly improbable romantic and dramatic scenarios...By its third act, the film almost starts to feel like a parody of the most maudlin conventions of the “sick teen romance” genre. - 50
Slant Magazine
In the film, hardly any fact about cystic fibrosis is raised without being doubly, even triply, underlined for viewers. - 50
Arizona Republic
It’s a weird little genre, the sick-teen romance. “Five Feet Apart” winds up as just a pedestrian entry in it, because it tries way too hard on the melodrama front. Being a teenager is difficult enough. Being a sick teenager is presumably that much harder. Being a teenager in “Five Feet Apart” means suffering from something else, in addition: overkill. And that’s deadly. - 50
San Francisco Chronicle
At 116 minutes, Five Feet Apart is too much of a just-OK thing. All the same, I want to see Haley Lu Richardson’s next movie.
