Let me start by saying that I’m apparently not the audience for the romance 5 to 7; I didn’t like it, but my female companions all enjoyed it.
A struggling Manhattan writer in his late twenties meets a ravishingly beautiful married Frenchwoman who is ten years older. As we all know, the French are more open-minded about sex than are Americans. She invites him to conduct a discreet affair – discreet because the romance is restricted to the two hours between 5 PM and 7 PM, the hours that she is not with her family. He is played by Anton Yelchin (Chekov in most recent Star Trek , Like Crazy). She is played by the stunning French actress Bérénice Marlohe (Skyfall).
And here’s the problem – the woman is rich and privileged and she’s played by Bérénice Marlohe. This character can have any man she wants (Marlohe even could snare James Bond himself in Skyfall.) Why is she interested in this callow loser? We just can’t connect the dots.
I blame writer-director Victor Levin (creator of Mad About You and one of the team behind Mad Men) for writing that is contrived – at a higher level than network sitcoms, for sure, but still contrived. 5 to 7 does has its moments. When the young guys finds himself at an intimidating dinner party at his lover’s apartment, he finds that the other guests are Julian Bond (!), famous maestro and an iconic chef – the real guys in celebrity cameos. And New Yorker editor David Remnick plays himself in another cameo – all very witty. Glenn Close and Frank Langella show up mid-movie as his parents, and hilarity ensues for ten minutes or so. But then Yelchin’s loser man-boy comes back on-screen, and I just couldn’t suspend disbelief.
There’s a suitably sentimental ending. I suspect that there’s a gender divide on this movie. Women seem to enjoy it, while men seem to be disgusted by it.
[SPOILER ALERT: In the epilogue, the two main characters run into each other years later with their families. His new wife doesn’t have a clue that her hubby had been involved with this woman. In real life, no way THAT happens.]