In French culture, "cinq a sept" literally means from 5 to 7, a time of day we here in America would generally consider to be "Happy Hour". For us it's a time to kick back and unwind with a few friends after work and down a few frosty beverages before hitting the homestead. But it has a dual meaning to those of an adulterous disposition, with the hours marking the unofficial time when such affairs are deemed acceptable, and in some cases encouraged. Victor Levin's directorial debut 5 to 7 sees itself as a fanciful, classic romance, and occasionally hits on just the right notes, but it's too cloying to be anything more than a dalliance.
Following many of the same neurotic tics and rhythms of Woody Allen, Levin's 5 to 7 follows Brian Blum (Anton Yelchin), one of those aimless, talentless yet somehow not starving wannabe writers you only find in the movies. Never published, and with a wall of rejection letters to prove it, Brian still manages to live in the posh Upper East side without a care in the world. Other than a single observation, fairly flimsy observation that "The best writing won't be found in books or plays" but in the personal love inscriptions on Central Park benches, we're given little evidence of Brian's talent, but the overwhelming impression that he isn't especially talented at all. Fortunately, Brian's career as an author is less intriguing than the sudden affair he enters into with high-class French beauty, Arielle (Berenice Marlohe), who he meets randomly outside of the Manhattan St. Regis hotel. He's immediately smitten, and apparently so is she for some reason. But she's also married to a wealthy diplomat (Lambert Wilson) with two kids at home. However she and her husband have an arrangement, a very "French" agreement that keeping lovers is fine between the hours of "5 to 7", as long as it never interferes with home life.
Pretty hard to believe, right? The film goes to great lengths to explain why this is acceptable, but never why a stunning and sophisticated woman like Arielle would fall for someone like Brian, who has absolutely nothing going for him except some "aw shucks" charm. Rather than doing cartwheels at the extraordinarily awesome situation he's stumbled into, Brian can't wrap his head around it. Snobbishly brushing her off at first and going back into his hole to work (on that writing he's terrible at), ultimately he can't resist and leaps into the affair with both feet. In-between passionate trysts, Arielle and Brian's abundant differences, both in age (she's nearly 10 years older), culture, and life experience only drive them together rather than apart. While the boundaries of the relationship can never change, she still finds new ways to shock him, in particular when he's invited to Arielle's home for dinner. There he meets her husband and his own mistress (Olivia Thirlby), conveniently a young and attractive book editor. You can probably see where that goes. The openness of the affair throws Brian for a loop, which is nothing compared to what it does to his parents (Frank Langella and Glenn Close, both terrific here), who bicker hilariously over the morality of the whole affair.
While these cultural mishaps and romantic interludes are sharply written in exploring the contours of a very unusual affair, Levin's already mushy screenplay goes into full blown schmaltz as the situation grows more complicated. Brian, naturally, can't deny his true feelings of love for Arielle, and when things don't quite go as planned the film takes an undeniably dark and sappy turn, sucking the air out of what had been an enjoyable trifle of a romance. The transition from light and witty to overly sentimental is clumsy, and as Brian wallows in melancholy we're treated to an abundance of shallow platitudes about love and heartbreak. Not that 5 to 7 was ever all that deep to begin with; at best it's a light-hearted fling rather than a film worthy of a long-lasting commitment.
Rating: 3 out of 5
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