If you've ever felt stuck in a small town, Anna Kendrick has just the song for you!
In the upcoming musical film The Last Five Years, Anna plays a struggling actress who falls in and out of love with her novelist beau, played by Smash's Jeremy Jordan. Her journey begins when she leaves Ohio for New York—something she sings about in "I Can Do Better Than That."
The Last Five Years is a movie adaption of Jason Robert Brown's Broadway play, and in this particular number (featured in the stage and screen versions), Anna sings about her high school friend's unplanned pregnancy and the shotgun wedding that followed.
This knocked-up pal and her accidental baby daddy "got a little cute house on a little cute street" and had "a typical life in a town on the Eastern Shore."
But this isn't the life for Anna's character! "I thought about what I wanted," she sings. "It wasn't like that at all! Made Carolann a cute baby sweater/ Thinking 'I can do better than that.'"'
So she leaves suburbia for the city, returning only for a visit. "When we get to my house, take a look at that town/ Take a look at how far I've gone," she sings.
The fledgling star encourages her writer love to look at how far he's come, too, reminding him, "Think of all the bulls--t we've both been through/ Think of what's past because we can do better!"
Only, over time, the romance hits some snags and things don't remain on the up and up. And in the film which unfolds in reverse chronological order, we see this happening every step of the way.
The Last Five Years hits theaters Feb. 13.