53
Metascore
27 reviews · Provided by Metacritic.com
- 90Los Angeles TimesKatie WalshLos Angeles TimesKatie WalshThe 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.
- 63Philadelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonPhiladelphia Daily NewsGary ThompsonThe movie is actually not bad, until it goes full Lifetime Channel crazy in the third act.
- 60VarietyAndrew BarkerVarietyAndrew BarkerFresh 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.
- 60The New York TimesBen KenigsbergThe New York TimesBen KenigsbergRichardson, previously wonderful with good material (“Columbus,” “Support the Girls”), here cements her genius status by finding depths beyond the contrived screenplay.
- 58The A.V. ClubCaroline SiedeThe A.V. ClubCaroline SiedeUnfortunately, 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.
- 50Slant MagazineKeith WatsonSlant MagazineKeith WatsonIn the film, hardly any fact about cystic fibrosis is raised without being doubly, even triply, underlined for viewers.
- 50Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzArizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzIt’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.
- 50San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleSan Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleAt 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.
- 50Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsChicago TribuneMichael PhillipsBut Haley Lu Richardson’s in it. She’s excellent. In fact, she’s reliably excellent. In “Five Feet Apart” she goes 10 rounds with dreckdom, and wins. Scene after scene the movie becomes a two-hour demonstration in the art, craft and mystery of what a performer can do to make you believe, in spite of the things they actually have to say.
- 40The Hollywood ReporterCaryn JamesThe Hollywood ReporterCaryn JamesThe film becomes more exhausting than tense. In the end, all that manipulation backfires. Unlike the best of its genre, the rote Five Feet Apart isn’t wrenching enough to jerk a single tear.