The Last Five Years: A Movie Musical

Let’s rewind to 2004. I was a high school senior who was already very obsessed with Broadway musicals. And the biggest one that year was, of course, Wicked. One of the male stars of the musical was Norbert Leo Butz (Fiyero). A classmate of mine had a huge crush on him and she told me about his other work, including “The Last Five Years.” When I went to college, I discovered a great music store in the nearby mall who had a great Broadway selection. I found “The Last Five Years” and I bought it.

And I loved it.

So I was excited to hear there was a movie version coming out. Okay, I’ll be honest—I’m always excited to hear about a new movie musical.

However, I never found someone to go see it with nor the time to go on my own. So I had to wait for it to come on Netflix, which it has.

SPOILER GODDESS!


The Last Five Years might be confusing if you watch the movie without knowing anything about the play. Because the relationship is told from two different perspectives—Cathy’s (Anna Kendrick) and Jamie’s (Jeremy Jordan). But Cathy starts from the end of the relationship and goes back to the beginning while Jamie starts at the beginning and goes to the end. They interchange seamlessly, so it may be confusing to see the mood and time change so quickly.

Jamie is over and Jamie is gone/Jamie’s decided it’s time to move on/Jamie has new dreams he’s building upon/And I’m still hurting

There are no surprises here. We are told from the beginning that the relationship ends badly as Cathy sits in a dark house, muted colors around her, as she stares at Jamie’s goodbye letter (“I’m Still Hurting”). Throughout the song, we learn that Jamie is the one who ended the marriage and that he had secrets that drove them apart.

I’ve been waiting for someone/I’ve been praying for someone/I think that I could be in love with someone/Like you

We then switch to brighter colors, more upbeat song and a smaller apartment as Jamie and Cathy burst into the room. They are making out and fast on their way to sexytimes. Jamie sings that he’s breaking his family’s heart because she’s not Jewish but that makes her more alluring. He doesn’t care what she looks like or any quirks she has because of that one reason (“Shiksa Goddess”).

See, you’re laughing and I’m smiling/By a river in Ohio/And you’re mine/We’re doing fine

Cathy and Jamie are sitting by the water and she’s trying to be hopeful. She admits that their relationship has had problems, owns she played a part in it and hopes they can start again (“See I’m Smiling”). However, Jamie is only in town for a few hours and isn’t even spending her birthday with her because he has to go to a party thrown by his publishers. While I get that he has business agreements, I’m sure someone would understand family takes precedence. Cathy loses it, mentioning that he’s been unfaithful to her, and by the end she’s crying while Jamie doesn’t do anything.

It's hard not to be sure/I'm spinning out of control/Out of control

We go from a river in Ohio back to the East River, where we see Jamie writing in Brooklyn. He gets a call and agrees to go into Manhattan for a meeting. Along the way, he calls Cathy and agrees to move in with her and tells her to start apartment hunting.

Jamie then bikes from Brooklyn to Manhattan, via ferry, to visit an agent who wants to represent him and his book. He sings about how his life is suddenly moving fast (“Moving Too Fast”), his career taking off and his romance burning hot. While some people may grow cautious, Jamie decides to go full steam ahead and not let anything slow him down.

Then he smiles/And where else can I go?/I didn't know/The rules do not apply

It’s back to Cathy and we watch her attend party after party held in Jamie’s honor. It seems she’s right about another party with the same twenty jerks he already knows from her previous song. But this time, Cathy is still positive and she sings about what it’s like to live with Jamie whenever he’s writing. She says things can get weird but then he smiles and she falls in love all over again. Cathy says she’s “A Part of That” but towards the end, it seems she’s even doubting herself.

But shouldn't I want the world to see/The brilliant girl who inspires me?/Don't you think that now's a good time to be/The ambitious freak you are?

Next it’s Christmas and Cathy comes home in a foul mood. Jamie tries to cheer her up but she’s not having it. So he sets her up on the couch and tells her the story of Schmuel, a poor tailor who discovers he has a magical clock that grants him time to make the dress he always wanted to make and makes him younger again (“The Schmuel Song”). At the end, Jamie encourages Cathy to give up the jobs she hates and focus on her career—acting, fashion, whatever—instead. His support cheers her up and gives her the push to do just that.

I could chew on tin foil for a spell/I could get a root canal in hell/But it wouldn't be as swell as this summer is gonna be!/'Cause the torture is just exquisite, while I'm waiting for you to visit/So hurry up, schmuck, get unstuck and get on the scene

We go from Christmas to summer as Cathy Skypes with Jamie. She details how her summer is going doing regional theater in Ohio and begging him to come visit (“A Summer in Ohio”). Fun theater fact—the “former” stripper is played by Betsy Wolfe, who played Cathy in the 2013 Off-Broadway revival and is a leading contender to play Elsa when Disney brings Frozen to the Great White Way.

Till the world explodes/Till there's no one left/Who has ever known us apart

This is the halfway mark and also the only time that Cathy’s and Jamie’s stories reach the same point. Jamie proposes to Cathy in the park and she accepts. They then get married, with all the hope that their love will last forever (“The Next Ten Minutes”). However, there may already be cracks showing—in their lyrics, it seems Jamie and Cathy both have pinned their futures and happiness on each other, and maybe have already set themselves up to fail.

It's not a problem/It's just a challenge/It's a challenge to resist/Temptation

We’re not too long after Jamie and Cathy’s marriage and cracks are definitely starting to show. He complains with to his friends that now that he’s married, women are practically throwing themselves at him. Jamie insists he loves Cathy and that he’s trying to fight temptation, but at the same time it seems he’s also not putting up much of a fight (“A Miracle Would Happen”). This starts to give credence to Cathy’s earlier line about Jamie cheating, especially when he meets his publicist’s new secretary (Ashley Spencer, Jordan’s real life wife).

I will not be the girl stuck at home in the 'burbs/With the baby, the dog, and the garden of herbs/I will not be the girl in the sensible shoes/Pushing burgers and beer nuts and missing the clues

Original Cathy Sherie Rene Scott makes a cameo as a casting director or director (there are three people and it’s not clear) our Cathy auditions for. She then sings about her troubles auditioning and how she is struggling to make it big (“Climbing Uphill”). We even get to see her audition and Cathy’s lyrics reflect her inner monologue, including her hatred for the pianist (composer Jason Robert Brown in a cameo) and wondering what Jamie is going to be like when they have kids. She vows to make it as an actress because she’s not going to live in Jamie’s shadow and just be his wife—clues to why she may be so upset later in the marriage.

No one can give you courage/No one can thicken your skin/I will not fail so you can be comfortable, Cathy/I will not lose because you can't win

We’re back to muted colors and serious tones, but this time it’s during Jamie’s side of the story. He’s trying to coax Cathy into joining him for a party but she’s not in the mood to go out. Jamie tries to soothe her, saying he understands that she’s upset that she’s still not out of doing regional summer stock theater. He assures her that he believes in her (“If I Didn’t Believe In You”) but it’s also clear that he doesn’t really understand what she’s going through. Jamie had success early and easily, it doesn’t seem he went through the same rounds of rejection other authors have gone through and that actors definitely encounter. So while it does seem that Cathy has grown resentful of his success, he also doesn’t seem equipped to deal with her lack of success.

When we get to my house, take a look at that town/Take a look at how far I've gone/I will never go back/Never look back anymore

Cathy and Jamie go on a road trip as she tells him more about her life before she met him. It becomes clear that she’s always had bigger goals for herself and wants a better life than the one she had, even though it seems she had a nice middle class upbringing (“I Can Do Better”). Along the way, they have a quickie and she tells him that all she needs is him. She asks him to move in with her and says that they can do better together.

All right - the panic recedes/All right - everyone bleeds/All right - I get what I need/And nobody needs to know

Jamie wakes up in bed…with Alise’s assistant. This entire song confirms that Jamie is cheating on Cathy with multiple women, including Alise, as he assures them that he loves them rather than Cathy. He is combative when speaking of her but tender with his girlfriends (“Nobody Needs to Know”).

I stand on a precipice/I struggle to keep my balance/I open myself/I open myself one stitch at a time

Cathy returns from her first date with Jamie, full of potential and beaming at the possibilities now at her feet. She is younger, full of life and just so different from the dead-eyed, depressed woman we met at the beginning. She still has hope (“Goodbye Until Tomorrow”).

I could never rescue you/All you ever wanted/But I could never rescue you/No matter how I tried

Meanwhile, Jamie is leaving Cathy in his timeline. He explains that Alise helped him move his stuff and he’s closed their bank account. Jamie says he could never give Cathy what she really wanted—a way out of her failures and life (“I Could Never Rescue You”). He says he could only love her and watch her fall. However, it seemed he didn’t know how to help her back up.

The last scene of the movie is Cathy and Jamie saying “goodbye,” but with different tones. Cathy’s is the hopeful first while Jamie’s is the shattered last.

I don’t believe this movie did very well as it would probably be very confusing to someone who was not familiar with the play set up. Because this movie is faithful to the stage show—the main players are Cathy and Jamie, no one else really has any lines or songs. They don’t really interact—as in Jamie doesn’t respond to Cathy and vice versa during their songs—and we only ever hear one side of an argument. And thus it’s our conclusion to draw: what went wrong and who is to blame?

For my part, I think both share the blame. It seems clear that both went into the marriage with very, very idealized views on marriage. Both seemed obsessed with each other and fixated on the idea that they needed the other to make their lives better. Neither seemed to have the skills or the concept that marriage takes work. By the time Cathy cottons on to this, Jamie’s already checked out.

And he’s checked out because Cathy shut him out. She grew resentful of his success, feeling horrible about her lack of success and didn’t know how to deal with it except to blame him. Cathy may have wanted him to be as miserable as her or maybe not flaunt his success so much. As I said earlier, Jamie was ill-equipped to help her, having had success without the usual rejection. He couldn’t relate to her and didn’t seem to do anything to understand it. Jamie just seemed to think she needed to snap out of it and just smile and support him.

Jamie, to me, seems to be in love with love. That he likes the initial rush and euphoria but doesn’t really want to have to put in the work. I hate the idea that the woman pushes a man to cheat and I think this dispels that by showing that Jamie had the urge to cheat before Cathy shut him out. Perhaps he even started pulling away first, which led to her shutting down (though it appears Cathy didn’t suspect cheating until almost the end). Alise better watch out—when the going gets tough or some prettier model comes along, Jamie bails.

I know this doesn’t scream “Valentine’s Day,” though the trailer may have fooled you into thinking this was your usual romantic musical movie. So don’t rent this to share with your loved one today. Pick something else from Netflix’s rom com suggestions.