Victor Levin's 5 to 7 is one of those male fantasy films — a nebbishy 24-year-old loner (Anton Yelchin) strolls the streets of Manhattan. He's a writer looking for inspiration and happens upon it when he spies a sexy older woman, Arielle, (Berenice Marlohe) smoking a cigarette in front of an upscale hotel.
Berenice Marlohe and Anton Yelchin
They smoke together, they chat, and then the exotic French woman asks him to meet her again. Most likely in real life, a woman who looks like Marlohe with an attitude to match would swat the inquisitive boy like a gnat.It is perhaps one of the idiosyncrasies of the film that grabs you and holds on tight.
With its sensibilities taken, no doubt, from The Graduate, Yelchin's Brian gets sucked into the sensuality of Arielle. She invites him to be her hourly lover and sets the rules — the pair can only tussle between the hours of 5 to 7. She and her equally French husband,Valery (Lambert Wilson), have an agreement. In order to preserve their marriage and keep life intact for their two small children, they can both have extramarital affairs. He has a mistress, Jane (Olivia Thirlby) who is about the same age as Brian. She happens to be an editor at a prestigious book publisher — just the friend Brian will need both professionally and personally as he tries to navigate the waters of Arielle's strict rules about how the depth of their romance and how to social climb his way to the top of the New York writers' circle.
Yelchin's Brian wears his heart on his sleeve while Marlohe (the beauty from recent Bond film Skyfall) plays her Arielle with a cool, sensual reserve. Comic relief comes in the form of Glenn Close and Frank Langella as Brian's overbearing Jewish parents. The two play the couple as Yiddish caricatures but it's good for more than a few laughs.
When the ax finally falls on Brian's heart, there's been enough build up for true tea and sympathy.
Perhaps the film would have left more lingering had Levin not decided to move us ahead a few years.
The wrap up ending is contrived and zaps the haze of romance like the bubble Brian's been living in during his fantasy.
Added value is Levin's emotional affair with Manhattan, bringing to mind hints of Woody Allen and capturing the city's romance and its loneliness with the help of Arnaud Potier's photography.There's so much heart in this romantic film it will make one want to fantasize about their own longings for cinq a sept affairs.
