The Music of ‘The Last Five Years’ — Analysis and Review
A tale of love lost and found told is taken to new heights.
Playwright and composer Jason Robert Brown’s musical favourite ‘The Last Five Years’ focuses on the pitfalls of a five-year relationship. Centralised around just two characters, the sung-through, pop-operetta is outstanding in its musical communication.
Set in New York City, struggling actress Cathy Hyatt (Anna Kendrick) and successful novelist Jamie Wellerstein (Jeremy Jordan) reflect on the struggle and failings of their five-year relationship through song. The catch is that Cathy’s songs begin at the end of the marriage, with her final song at the beginning of her and Jamie’s love affair, whilst Jamie’s songs start at the beginning and end at the final moments in the relationship. The concept is modern and seems simple, yet it is the music that creates every important and expertly emotional detail to string the plot together, transforming what could just be seen as a simple relationship into an important lesson.
Each song delves into each colour of emotion felt during that point during the couples’ relationship. Both actors have an extensive background in musical theatre, Anna Kendrick (plays Cathy), also known for starring in the ‘Into The Woods’ feature film & ‘High Society’ on Broadway as a child. Whereas Jeremy Jordan (plays Jamie) has been a Broadway star for years, belting out tunes in shows like, ‘Newsies’ and ‘Bonnie and Clyde’. These actors are not theatre novices, and knowing this, we can anticipate a powerful performance. The beauty of this story is how realistically it has been told. Every section of Cathy and Jamie’s journey is detailed. The melodic, sweeping, and sometimes tense and stirring piano leads each track and strings them together.
An example of this is “Still Hurting”, the first song introduced in the film. As a heartbroken and bleak Cathy sings, she so eloquently touches on every emotion of raw agony following her and Jamie’s separation. However plain and obvious they may be, the lyrics really set up the deeply told story of Cathy and Jamie. Cathy sings lines like ‘Jamie arrived at the end of the line, Jamie ’s convinced that the problems are mine’. Brown’s writing has Cathy repeating Jamie’s name, personalising her story, and painting Jamie out to be the only one at fault.
This gives us Cathy’s perspective purely, which in hindsight, allows us to see how their relationship went wrong — their lack of understanding and communication. The line ‘Jamie’s convinced that the problems are mine’, speaks great truth as Jamie never takes responsibility for the failure of their marriage and seems to even blame Cathy for his infidelity later on in the play. ‘Still Hurting’ tosses back and forth between Cathy’s resentment of and love for Jamie. As she outlines his failures, Brown has Cathy delving deeper into her real feelings. This being said, in the end, she still is in love with Jamie. After all of her built-up anger, she is left with heartbreak, questioning, ‘Maybe I’d see how you can be so certain that we had no chance at all’.
It is this that makes Brown’s writing so extraordinary as he doesn’t focus on just one emotion per song, as many others might, but chooses to realistically depict a character’s mix of bitterness and mourning in the end of a relationship. In a world where we are surrounded by films of romance at times only seen in two stages (in love and separated), the point of ‘The Last Five Years’ is to dissect every point and flaw that led to a relationship’s descent. This shows us a realistic perspective of a marriage, how they take a lot of work and are far from simple, making it a beautifully refreshing tale. In the film version, director Richard LaGravenese decided to reject the stage interpretation where Jamie and Cathy meet in the middle of the play. In the feature film, they are seen together in nearly every song, which some may not appreciate, but I believe adds more room for interaction and feeling.
Through Brown’s storytelling, we are shown a lesson in love and, as fans, get to squabble about who was most at fault in Cathy and Jamie’s marriage. Many only focus on Jamie’s downfalls, and yes his were certainly paramount as he resorted to cheating on his wife, but Cathy also had faults in their marriage. It is these faults that are presented in two tracks titled, ‘If I Didn’t Believe In You’ & ‘A Part of That’.
‘If I Didn’t Believe In You’ is an extraordinary track that so analytically highlights the trouble between Cathy and Jamie — their emotional imbalance and lack of understanding for one another. As Jamie, a successful writer attempts to butter up unsuccessful actress, Cathy, his comforting support spirals into his revealed frustration with his wife. As Cathy refuses to go to one of his publishing company parties, he tries to determine the truth of why she doesn’t want to go — it is that she feels unequal to Jamie’s success. Jamie sings, ‘If I didn’t believe in you we’d never have gotten this far. If I didn’t believe in you and all of the ten thousand women you are’. Through this, Jamie attempts to encourage Cathy, explaining that he wouldn’t be with her if he thought she wouldn’t eventually be successful and therefore she should believe in her ambitions as well.
Yet, the compelling nature of this track is how it twists to reveal Jamie’s true feelings. Change in either Cathy or Jamie’s emotions through a singular song is something seen in Brown’s songs throughout the musical. This change starts as Jamie’s comfort turns to questioning Cathy’s emotions, singing ‘if I’m cheering on your side Cathy, why can’t you support mine?’. As the song grows darker, the strings and piano grow wilder, moving from a smooth and melodic tone to more emotive violins, and then unto erratic staccato string phrases. Jamie’s vocals move with the music, creating more tension and passion which stirs in us as the audience and lets us follow along the quick, emotional journey.
As the story grows darker, Jamie admits ‘I will not fail so that you can be comfortable Cathy, I will not lose because you can’t win.’ Jamie’s repetition of Cathy’s name goes from being warm support to questioning and then eventuating in a sarcastic and patronising tone. This personalisation is eerily resonant of ‘Still Hurting’, as Cathy also repeats Jamie’s name, initially because of her bitterness towards him, but eventuating in his name as a remark of her heartbreak.
In the bittersweet song ‘A Part Of That’, the bridge of the tune is what is gripping. However sweet sounding the melody may be, Cathy is reflecting upon the imbalance of her and her partner’s success, yet states that she must go along with it. She sings ‘instead of side by side, I take his cue…true, but there’s no question, there’s no doubt, I said I’d stick it out and follow through’. In saying this, we again can see an unequal situation — Cathy is literally saying that she is not in this with her partner & that she has to ‘stick it out’ when feeling compared to her successful husband. If you look at Cathy’s songs, they mostly seem to be her struggling to cope with her standstill acting career, until she cracks in “See I’m Smiling”, a song detailing her frustration with her personal and professional life. This is no exception, as Cathy’s attitude is much different from ‘If I Didn’t Believe In You’, showing the progression of her emotions towards her relationship.
Yet, the ending of Jamie and Cathy’s marriage was not black and white, Cathy also had faults that factored in the descent of their relationship. Cathy does not pull her own weight in the relationship, and she needs to be the one to fix her problems and not her husband. Yet she does not change her attitude or jealousy of Jamie.
As much as they fake it, they really do not have a true understanding or support for one another. Jamie is frustrated with Cathy’s constantly discouraged persona, as he does attempt to help her along the way. He sings ‘maybe you’re heart’s completely swayed, but your head can’t follow through’ in “The Schmuel Song” (a sung story that Jamie tells Cathy to encourage her acting career). All that Jamie ‘believed in’ with Cathy was just a means to help himself & get her to be there with him at his book party.
As the lyrics hit the nail on the head of emotion, details & references throughout the musical are paramount. The show itself does not have named reprises; each song is standalone. So reminders of change come through specific lyrics, which I think are more haunting because they aren’t as obvious. as Cathy speaks to Jamie about her ambitions to rise above ordinary relationships in ‘I Can Do Better Than That’, she refers to a failed relationship of hers, singing, ‘he blew me off with a heartfelt letter, I thought I can do better than that.’ At the end of the musical, Jamie does just this — blows Cathy off with a seemingly sincere letter. It is the hope and hate that are so cleverly contrasted throughout the musical through the switching timelines that show us the sad beauty of a love weakening.
The final track, ‘Goodbye Until Tomorrow’ is the contrast between hope at the beginning of a shiny relationship, and the reality of its ending, making it purely bittersweet. Jamie, again, focuses purely on himself. The only time he refers to Cathy is through blame, even it was his actions that ended the relationship. By stating, ‘you never noticed how the wind had changed’, it shows the lack of communication from both of them. As much as Jamie states ‘If I Didn’t Believe In You’, he really does give up on her, sung in ‘I Could Never Rescue You’. The couple becomes too invested in each other’s professional life, with Jamie feeling as though Cathy’s career was his responsibility and therefore a burden unto him. And Cathy feels constantly sorry for herself & inadequate to her husband’s flourishing writing career.
As far as lyrically impacting musicals go, I put ‘The Last Five Years’ as one at the top of that list. However simple it may appear, writer and composer Jason Robert Brown has executed many colours of honest love and heartbreak through the music. The blend of superior acting and vocals alongside the beautifully written narratives define what makes this piece of art so wonderful. As musical theatre enthusiasts identify a ‘Jamie’ as being anything but good, we can see how ‘The Last Five Years’ has, through its poignant storytelling, become a fan favourite.
Stars Out Of Five: 4/5
