5X2

I first came aware of this movie, 5x2, after seeing it on TV. I am puchasing a hard copy because I felt it was fairly intellegent, but entertaing take on marriage. While I generally do not like chick-flicks, this one is an exaption. Just one nitpick, I still don't know why in this day and age there is not a Spanish subtrack. As a learner of the laugue, that would come in handy for the Spanish speakers/learneres in this contry.

"5x2" (Five Times Two) is written & directed by Francois Ozon, who previously made the English language film "Swimming Pool." That film was a noir-ish murder mystery with lots of sex. A lot of people didn't like it, a lot of people loved it. I fall into the second category. In 5x2 he takes a step back as far as entertainment, but takes a step forward in realism. This movie isn't very original, the story's been done before and the reversal thing's been done hundreds of times...But the dialogue and events happen pretty realistically, which helps. When we meet Gilles (Stephane Freiss) and Marion (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi), a married couple they are in front of a divorce lawyer about ready to sign their divorce papers. Once they do and they are officially divorced, they go to a motel room and have quick meaningless sex that neither one of them enjoys. After Gilles asks Marion if she'd like to try again (marriage, that is) she simply leaves. The film jumps backwards to a fairly awkward moment. Gilles and Marion are entertaining Gilles' gay brother and his boyfriend, where Gilles makes some fairly odd revelations. Skipping back again, we see the difficult birth of their son Nicolas; Their marriage; How they met and then, finally, them walking off into the sunset after their first encounter. I know it sounds as if I just ruined the ffilm for you, but rest assured. I just described every event in the film and didn't really tell you anything. This is a good foreign-film; This movie could take place in America just as easily and almost everything Ozon has in this film really happens to the most average couples (with the exception of Gilles' revelation. That only happens with certain ones). The film is no masterpiece and it's not "Brilliant!" like the cover says. It's an interesting character study for sure, the scenes of nudity are nice, and it keeps you fairly entertained. As I said, his previous effort Swimming Pool was much better...But this isn't a bad film. In a few words; Rent It First.GRADE: B

Weak movie. Female lead lacks.

Good French cinema undeniably exists (the Polish-French collaboration Double vie de Veronique ranks among my favorite films) but from my own personal experience, a disproportionate amount of movies made in France turn out as puzzling disappointments. Perhaps it's that the sexual-spiritual intensity of so many of the relationships that are captured in French literature and film contain too much internal feeling to translate well to a foreign audience. I say this with what I hope is other than a hidebound, Hollywood-centric point of view, having seen motion pictures from a dozen other nations, and having known a fair number of French people in my life, some fairly closely.5x2 (its title comes from there being five flashback segments to this film, all concerning two people) sounds on paper like a sure winner. It co-stars the talented Italian actress Valeria Bruni Tedeschi (she might be remembered by US film-goers from her cameo in Munich) as a quietly self-damning Frenchwoman named Marion, and like the recent American film Memento, 5x2 tells its story in reverse, commencing with an overdue divorce and concluding with the meeting of the couple around whom the tortured plot carelessly revolves. Sounds good, you're thinking? I, too, was of that optimistic expectation before I actually saw the film.5x2 goes badly wrong early on and veers farther and farther off course. Its characters range from frustratingly foolish to absolutely despicable, and its vignettes into the lives and pasts of the couple at the story's heart are all held at arm's length to the point where we cannot warm to anyone or care about the apparent tragedy of their fates. The scene five minutes in where Gilles proceeds to rape his by then ex-wife was so horrendous the remaining 80-odd minutes of screen time seem merely diminished filler.If you have free time and money to spare, and you're a fan of European cinema, you might not feel this investment of ninety minutes is entirely wasted; however, in my view this film should be bypassed in favor of more worthy titles.If you've read this far and wish to know what the five segments in this film are, I'll list them here, spoilers and all. So if you think 5x2 sounds like your next DVD purchase, stop reading now.Part One: Gilles and Marion are seen in the opening moments finalizing their divorce with a Parisian magistrate as he irons out such details as custody of their young son, financial support, and living arrangements. The couple then check into a hotel and celebrate their divorce with plans of sex. (See what I mean? French whims don't translate all that well to American sensibilities. How many U.S. couples skip from divorce court to a gleeful tryst with one another?) What starts off consensual ends up as rape when Gilles, a boor throughout the forthcoming film, brutalizes Marion. Afterwards, as she is leaving, Gilles offers to forget the past and start over again. Marion merely closes the hotel room door, and leaves. (And instead of a fade-out as I'm sure virtually all other directors would have done, Ozon proceeds to pointlessly trail Marion down the hallways for the next half minute. Why I don't know.)Part Two: Their marriage is shown in its latter days, months before the concluding/opening segment, and Marion and Gilles are hosting Gilles' homosexual brother and his latest paramour for dinner. Relations between the married heterosexual couple are strained but each ignores this and pretends to be depthlessly interested in the goings-on in the lives of the brother character and his much-younger love-interest. The couples get stoned and drunk and the brother confides to Marion that though he spends his money readily enough, the young man with whom he is involved will not actually make love with him. Some heavy-handed foreshadowing of Gilles and Marion's own marital fate is tossed in.Part Three: In the ultimate example of what a jerk he is, Gilles will not travel to the hospital where Marion is having serious complications during the birth of their son. Why Marion tolerates Gilles is puzzling and I think it's meant to be.Part Four: The wedding night of Gilles and Marion is featured. The couple, half a decade or more younger than we see them in the opening divorce scene, appears in love and happy, and yet even then we see the roots of their future misery. Gilles drinks himself unconscious and passes out in bed before his marriage can be consummated. Marion, probably setting some sort of speed record for infidelity, goes outside, and in her anger makes love to an American man, by a lake right outside the hall where her wedding festivities are still going on.Part Five: While on holiday in an Italian coastal resort, a single Marion and a romantically attached Gilles first meet. They know one another slightly from past business relations and have an instant attraction. Though each tries to ignore the pull they feel, Gilles does eventually betray the trust of his girlfriend and becomes involved with Marion. The last scene is shot in sunshine with happy music, and in its attempt to portray the tragedy of what we know awaits the young lovers, it smacks too heavily of melodrama and simply doesn't work. By this time I, and I suspect many other astute viewers, were so disgusted by the weakness of this movie that we don't much care.