Still the year's best love story: Victor Levin's sweet knockout, 5 TO 7, makes its DVDebut

When I covered 5 TO 7 just prior to its theatrical debut last April (that review is here),  I found it a remarkable example of culture-clash love story. Seeing it again this week on DVD -- where it will hit the streets for rental and purchase from IFC Films this coming Tuesday, August 18 -- I am even more impressed. On second viewing it holds up beautifully, delivering its charm, humor, surprise and sadness with a knockout combination of intelligence and grace. As written and directed by Victor Levin, it's an example of the height this genre can achieve, in which both grasp and reach are at one.

Mr. Levin, shown at right, has many more credits as writer than director, yet he has done a sterling job at both in this film. He's nailed the mind-set of a certain kind of writer -- his hero, Brian, played very well by Anton Yelchin -- without wasting any time trying to mimic the actual process of writing itself (something movies almost never get right and, in any case, is boring to view). He has given us the thrill and beauty of first love -- first real and important love, that is -- and balanced it quite deftly with life and all its compromises. Most important he's nailed the role of children and how defining they are in the decisions we make.

In tackling, as he does so well, the cultural difference between European and American mores regarding morality, sexuality and relationships, Levin has provided some utterly juicy roles for supporting characters -- Frank Langella and Glenn Close as Brian's parents -- and thoughtful, smart ones for actors such as Lambert Wilson and Olivia Thirlby, who play, respectively, the love object's husband and that husband's mistress.

As the love object herself, Arielle, the filmmaker has cast a remarkable performer, French actress Bérénice Marlohe, below, left, who uses her killer smile and graceful, mature composure to such devastating effect that she'll have you every bit as in thrall as she does our young hero. How the filmmaker employs Arielle's character to bring home his thoughts on compromise and life lessons is quite lovely, leading to a finale that balances poignancy with beauty, sadness and loss with a kind of joyful understanding and acceptance of that compromises we must make. And Levin's final line should resonate like crazy with most writers out there.

And yes, as on first viewing, I still feel that the movie works because the people here have no "money problems." This is a film about the entitled. Twice along the way, a character mentions something to the effect that, every so often life surprises us with its grace. Yes -- and especially, as here, when you don't have to worry about how you are going to afford your next meal.  Well, audiences in hard times have always flocked to movies in which the wealthy are seen at play. We still do, and I suspect that I'll return to 5 to 7 every once in awhile, to view a love story that understands the bigger picture and to be royally entertained while also being reminded of the costs involved. For you not to watch the film at least once would represent a real loss. 

Victor Levin's little treasure, 5 TO 7: Out of the blue comes the best love story in many a year

An instant classic, as well as the finest love story -- small, endearing but enduring, full of surprise, sadness and joy -- that I've seen since can't-remember-when, 5 TO 7, the new film by a fellow named Victor Levin (shown below), will surely knock the socks off folk looking for a movie romance that is funny, moving, believable and intelligent.

For foreign film buffs, the title 5 to 7 can only bring to mind the wonderful Agnes Varda movie, Cleo from 5 to 7. Comparisons are not inapt, as this new film, though much more "mainstream," is also quite French (in its attitudes, along with two of its stars). Its purpose -- together with entertaining us royally -- is to make us think and consider possibilities for relationships that we may not have allowed ourselves as yet enough freedom to fully engage. As writer/director, Mr. Levin's set-up could hardly be more European: a struggling young writer (Anton Yelchin, below, right) and a slightly older woman (Bérénice Marlohe, below, left) become involved, initially purely for a trysting relationship -- that will take place between the hours of, yes, 5 to 7pm.

Where this relationship goes will not be difficult to guess, but how it gets there, and how it engulfs us -- ah, that's something else. Mr. Levin has a splendid touch with dialog. I have not heard anything quite this good in a love story since, well, the time of the classics. And Levin doesn't do "racy," either. He's not trying to get us all hot and bothered with double entendres and the like. He want us to listen. And hear. And the conversation is so good that we hang on every word.

Visually, the director and his cinematographer (Arnaud Potier) do some lovely things with middle- and long-distance shots, over which some of that crack dialog is heard. This gives us viewers distance, as well, so that we see (and hear) the relationship as it grows and deepens -- without so many of those crass close-ups that eventually seem to cheapen things.

We see three generations in the process of this storytelling, too, with the older one brought to terrific life and art by Glenn Close (above, left) and Frank Langella (above, center), who play the Yelchin character's parents with tremendous humor and grace.

The "other man" -- just how European this movie will seem becomes plain when you discover his identity -- is played with his usual flair and substance by Lambert Wilson (above, left), while that man's mistress is played by an actress we can't get enough of, Olivia Thirlby (below).

The casting here is inspired, and so are the performances -- especially those of Yelchin (vital and engaging at every moment) and Ms Marlohe (below, who has both great beauty and a lovely, ever-so-slightly-withholding presence that often marks one of the differences between American and European actresses).

The cast also includes a number of important New Yorkers who actually play themselves (one such honcho is shown below). Mr. Levin, or his casting directors-- Billy Hopkins and Heidi Levitt -- must have some connections to have gotten these people to agree to their cameos. Or maybe it was the screenplay itself. Who would want to pass up the chance to be a part of a motion picture this good?

Culture clash, coming-of-age, love, lust, and the important of children and family. All of these are somehow given their due, along with themes of creativity, writing, and what counts as art. This is quite a lot to pack into a mere 95 minutes. But damned if Mr. Levin has not done it.

His final scene strikes such a amazing balance of strength and poignancy that you'll be holding your breath, while his final line of dialog is simply magical (and, I suspect, more truthful in actual example than not). His film is also an ode to the park benches (above, with their little plaques) of our sometimes fair and way over-entitled city.

In fact, the movie is a tricky kind of ode to that entitlement. What makes 5 to 7 a fantasy (for anyone except the wealthy) is that all this only happens here to those of entitlement. Our young man is no starving writer; in fact, as helped along by his wealthy parents, he lives pretty damned well. And all those he get involved with are living well, too.

This does nothing to lessen the film's intelligence nor its beauty. But a fantasy -- for those of us in the no-longer-middle-class or the working-poor -- it most certainly is.

5 to 7, from IFC Films, opens this Friday, April 3, in New York City at the IFC Center and probably elsewhere, too. The following Friday, April 10, it makes its VOD debut, so just about everyone across the country can discover the pleasures of this wonderful, intelligent and almost shockingly mature love story.