Movie review
March 14, 2019 · 116 min · PG-13
Woke Score
Lower is better
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for Five Feet Apart.
Woke representation / casting
Casting uses conventional teen leads that fit the story's hospital setting and demographic with no visible diversity quotas, identity signaling, or mismatched casting.
Woke political dialogue
All dialogue centers on personal illness struggles, family dynamics, friendship, and budding romance; no activist language, political arguments, or ideological messaging appears.
Identity-driven story themes
The narrative explores chronic illness, isolation, mortality, and the value of human connection as universal experiences without any race, gender, sexuality, or group-identity framing.
Western institutional / cultural critique
Hospital rules and medical protocols are shown as practical health necessities, not framed as oppressive systems, patriarchy, or targets for modern activist critique.
Review
Five Feet Apart is a 2019 romantic drama about two teenagers with cystic fibrosis who meet in the hospital and fall in love while forced to stay physically apart to protect their health. The story focuses on hospital routines, the limits imposed by their illness, and the pull between following strict medical rules and taking emotional risks. No audience-visible woke elements appear in the plot, dialogue, themes, or marketing.
Woke character or canon changes
Not relevant | This is an original screenplay with no established source material or characters altered for ideological reasons.
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
No right-leaning or anti-woke complaints exist; all documented criticism comes from the cystic fibrosis community and targets romanticization or marketing tone, not politics.
Creator track record context
Key creatives show only mild liberal signals overall—Baldoni's broader masculinity-focused work and Schulman's advocacy for women in film plus her work on a race-themed drama—while writers and other crew lack activist records, keeping the title-specific context low.
Production
