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. 

A French film about modern life, like nothing you've seen: Pascale Ferran's BIRD PEOPLE

Pascale Ferran has made only four full-length films in her career (which began back in 1983). Her most famous is Lady Chatterly from 2006, based on the D.H. Lawrence novel, but I would not be surprised if it's her new one, BIRD PEOPLE, that genuine movie-lovers (the kind who don't mind reading subtitles or wrestling with theme and meaning) will remember best. This is such an unusual movie. But it is so in ways very different from most of what passes in front of our eyes. It begins with a kind of rhapsody/tapestry of people going, being and doing (mostly via their modern conveniences), walking, riding and talking. The entire film lasts two hours and seven minutes, yet the time truly seems to fly by.

Bird People is the kind of movie that you probably should read little about prior to viewing. Just go, settle back, and drink it all in. Afterwards, you can read yourself crazy about the movie. So far, every review I've read, almost all of them positive, has come at the film from a different viewpoint and, clearly, the reviewer has taken away his/her own meaning(s). In the first half of the film, at least, Ms Ferran, pictured at left, has given us such an unusual and encompassing look at the world we're living in this year that the movie could exist as a kind of time capsule for folk who might want to know what 2013 and 2014 were like to live and travel in. And that is barely a piece of what the film has on offer.

That fine actor, whom we don't see often enough in movies, Josh Charles (shown below), plays Gary, a high roller/part owner of a Silicon Valley company arriving in France for a big business deal. What happens to him and why takes us through the first half of the film.

The lovely Anaïs Demoustier (below), most recently seen in The French Minister, plays Audrey, a chambermaid at the airport hotel in which Gary is lodging, who is using her earnings there to help put herself through university.

Ferran has divided her movie into basically two sections: the first covers the story of her "hero," Gary; the second is devoted to her "heroine." These two characters would appear to have little in common and never even meet for most of the movie. (Don't worry, this is no cute and clever rom-com like Happenstance.)

What happens to Gary is quite fascinating, and the way it happens -- how all this is "communicated" -- is even more so. It is very "now," especially in the scene that Mr. Charles has with the excellent Radha Mitchell that is evocative and heartbreaking -- at a distance. This scene is an enormous accomplishment for the actors and the filmmaker.

What happens to Ms Demoustier, however, is something else. Why does this happen to the characterof Audrey? If we given clues (other than her interest in birds), I didn't spot them. But I didn't need them, either, as I have never viewed scenes using a bird that in any way begin to rival what is on display here. (The "sparrow wrangler" deserves some sort of Oscar or César. Unless, of course, the sparrow is all CGI effects, like the tiger in Life of Pi. In retrospect, that poor pigeon from Amour was an absolute piker in the acting department.)

There are some subsidiary characters, too, most important among them the hotel worker played by the always wonderful Roschdy Zem, below, left. This man can easily stand in for how so much of our world today is managing to make ends meet.

Artistically, I would question only one of Ferran's major choices -- suddenly having a narrator pop into the proceedings, in case what the actor and filmmaker have given us is not enough for our full understanding of the situation. Yet we're already there. Mr. Charles is more than ample in his role, so we get it. And if we need look for more reason why Gary chooses the path he does, we can think back to the content of that email/video he recevies from his son early in the film. Even though the sudden, short narration is voiced by that excellent actor, Mathieu Amalric, it is unnecessary, and I believe this is the only time in the film that we're given any narration. A little more discipline (or belief in what she had already accomplished) might have been in order here on Ferran's part.

Otherwise, Bird People is an exceptional and exceptionally personal piece of filmmaking that I suspect will reach more people on various levels that even the moviemakers might hope or predict. For my money, its most important themes are about freedom and solitude and "life" in its many forms, but you'll have your own version. The film -- from Sundance Selects/IFC Films -- opens this Friday after appearances at Cannes and Toronto. Here in NYC you can see it at the IFC Center. Elsewhere? Don't know, but since the movie is simultaneously making its VOD debut across country, you'll have ample opportunity to see it.

Does JEALOUSY find Philippe Garrel in a more thoughtful, maybe even positive mood?

In addition to JEALOUSY,  the new movie from Philippe Garrel opening this week, TrustMovies has seen only four other of this famous Frenchman's films: his segment of Paris par vu..., Night Wind, Regular Lovers and The Frontier of Dawn (possibly one of the silliest titles in movie history). M Garrel is on record in the July/August 2014 issue of Film Comment as noting that the title of his latest film is not illustrative. Thank you. That helps, because, really, it seems that no one in Jealousy is in the least jealous of anyone else. This is, in fact, one of the oddly enjoyable things about the movie: How its characters move through life with an almost amazing lack of rancour, despite break-ups and other major problems concerning life, love and work.

If the movie seems beautifully alive yet oddly distant, this may be because its maker (pictured left), a 66-year-old man, is tackling relatively young people today but from an aged perspective that seems, by turns, thoughtful, quiet and simply removed from the agitation that is "youth." As both lead actors -- the filmmaker's son Louis Garrel and Anna Mouglalis -- shown on poster above and in the photos below -- are in their 30s, the "agitation that is middle age" might be more appropriate. Whatever. The bottom line is that Jealousy offers a kind of split perspective, as events occur that ought to cause conster-nation and yet the characters take them with the kind of philosophical stride reserved for the wisdom of age.

This allows us to identify with both generations, to see what is going on but not grow particularly alarmed by it all. Events here include everything from a husband and father leaving his family to his paramour betraying both him and his philosophy about the "purity" of the acting profession (which probably mirrors to a great extent the philosophy of the elder Garrel). That ever-present fight of family vs freedom is front and center once again.

Garrel père films in bits and pieces (and in lustrous black-and-white, with cinemtography by the great Willy Kurant), all of them leading from that initial scene in which Garrel fils moves out and begins his new life, while trying to still include his daughter (played by the adorable and extremely winning Olga Milshtein, shown above and below). Finally, these pieces produce a kind of mosaic of conventions, attitudes and culture. Jealousy is certainly not a great film (none of Garrel's are), but it is an interesting one, made by a filmmaker, the work of whom buffs will probably want to know. His new film is as good a place to start as any.

From Distrib Films and running a bare 77 minutes, Jealousy opens this Friday, August 15, here in New York City at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, and the following Friday, August 22, in the Los Angeles area at three Laemmle theaters: the Royal, Playhouse 7 and Town Center 5. In the weeks and months to come, it will play venues around the country. Click here and scroll down to see all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters.