My closest of friends and family members would know that I love musicals. If I could sing through my entire life, I probably would but it would sound like Les Miserables – “I dreamed a dream in time gone byyyyyyyy…” – so I don’t bother.

But as much as I love musicals, I had no clue about The Last Five Years. Zilch. Na-da. It could be a good thing because I would then have absolutely zero expectation on the movie since I did not even know the existence of the stage version. With that said, I sort of expected a musical version of One Day. It’s not exactly like One Day though.

The Last Five Years followed two individuals, Cathy and an arsehole – sorry, I mean, Jamie – who fell into a whirlwind of romance, got married and then things start to fall apart because life did not go exactly as they dreamed it to be aka life sucks.

And yes, because this is a musical, they sang through everything. And I literally meant everything. They sang when they are happily in love, heartbroken, angry, every emotions you can think of.

If you come expecting this to be a Nicholas Sparks movie, you will be following the number of couples who walked out of the theatre not even 5 minutes into the movie. This is not a Nicholas Sparks movie. This is a miserable musical. What? Did you think all musicals are Glee?

Anyway, I did enjoy the movie even though I think I would have preferred the stage version only because at some point, even as a musical fan, I was starting to get fidgety. Stage musicals usually have intermissions in between so the audience (and cast members) receive a little break because sometimes too much singing can be, well, a little too much to take.

Although the flipping back and forth between the past and present can give you a headache, one could easily spot the difference between the two time frames from how each scene was shot, the colours as well as tones – the past was brighter and more colourful while the present was dull and gloomy, which fits with what the characters went through.

As mentioned before, I expected a musical version of One Day but this is not it. One Day was bittersweet. This one is just plain sad. You will leave the theatre feeling sad (and angry while cursing that douchebag of a man named Jamie).

So if you love musicals and have not much of a choice in terms of movies to watch this weekend, go ahead and catch this one.

I give this movie a 3 out of 5.

Trailer…