5 FLIGHTS UP

Reviewed by GREG KING

Director: Richard Loncraine

Stars: Morgan Freeman, Diane Keaton, Cynthia Nixon, Korey Jackson, Claire van der Boom, Stirling Jerins Carrie Preston, Josh Pais, Maury Ginsberg.

Alex (Morgan Freeman) and Ruth Carver (Diane Keaton) are a bohemian couple who have lived in their fifth floor apartment in Brooklyn for nearly forty years. He is a struggling artist who paints in his small studio, while she is a retired teacher. But now Alex is finding it harder to trudge up the five flights of stairs every day, and the couple are in the process of selling their apartment to buy a million dollar apartment in the city that has an elevator. Their realtor Lily (Cynthia Nixon, from Sex And The City, etc) brings through a number of potential buyers during an open house one Saturday. They have mixed feelings about the sale, which leads to some small arguments and some tension in their otherwise easy going relationship.

A cross section of the New York population pass through the apartment. In the background the television is broadcasting updates on the massive hunt for a Muslim truck driver who abandoned his petrol tanker on the nearby Brooklyn Bridge. Authorities are cautious about using the threat of terrorism, but those regular updates bring out some of the worst prejudices in the people meandering through the apartment. Meanwhile Alex and Ruth worry about their sick pet pooch Dorothy who has just undergone an operation in the animal hospital. But neither of these subplots deliver a big emotional payoff.

None of this is very riveting stuff around which to build a movie, and a sense of inertia and apathy quickly sets in. 5 Flights Up is based on the bestselling novel Heroic Measures by Jill Ciment, but what should have been a lively love letter to the city itself becomes more of a dirge as Charlie Peter’s uninvolving adaptation wears on. Director Richard Loncraine has made films with more substance in the past (Richard III, The Special Relationship, etc), but this is fairly lightweight stuff that barely leaves an impression on the audience. His direction is rather languid, and it is increasingly hard for the audience to become too involved in the Carver’s anxiety over the sale of their apartment. And Loncraine tries to evoke memories of Woody Allen’s superior New York based comedies.

The fact that Alex and Ruth are an interracial couple is barely commented upon, except for a couple of brief scenes during flashbacks. When they first moved into their apartment they received a cold, disapproving look from one of their neighbours, and Ruth’s mother disapproves of Alex. In these flashback sequences, newcomer Korey Jackson and Claire van der Boom play younger versions of the couple, but while they bear an uncanny resemblance to their older counterparts they also fail to bring much of interest to the screen.

5 Flights Up is a septuagenarian romcom that basically coasts along on the goodwill that both Keaton and Freeman have earned over the years, but many will be a little disappointed by this bland and lacklustre offering. Keaton brings her usual ditzy quality to her performance, while Freeman brings his usual gravitas to a fairly thankless role as the more curmudgeonly and cynical Alex who always plans for the worst but hopes for the best. But neither performer really convinces as a couple who have spent forty years together. There is little real chemistry between the two. Keaton had more chemistry with Michael Douglas in the formulaic grey powered romcom And So It Goes. Freeman’s velvety tones provide the voice over narration as well as offering some bemused insights into the chaotic real estate scene in New York. Only Nixon as their pushy and high strung realtor registers strongly enough to leave a mark on the bland material.

★★