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Review

Of course, a new film by François Ozon is always a cause for celebration. France's auspiciously talented and prolific filmmaker has given us the impressive quartet of Swimming Pool, 8 Women, Under the Sand and Water Drops on Burning Rocks in about as many years — and he doesn't disappoint with this latest film. 5x2 is the trenchant study of a couple torn apart. However, what sets Ozon’s story apart from other serious cinematic portraits of tormented relationships is that — in the hopes of ferreting out revelatory information — it doesn't remove layers of narrative as it goes along. Instead, Ozon’s film travels in the opposite direction by telling its story backwards (think Christopher Nolan's Memento, Gaspar Noe'sIrreversible or Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's 21 Grams), thereby provocatively adding layers to the tale as it unfolds. The title refers to five key developments in the relationship between two people (played by Valerie Bruni Tedeschi and Stéphane Freiss). We meet them as they are in the throes of divorce, and then trace their shared path back to a momentous party, childbirth, marriage, wedding night and, finally, to their first meeting. And so the film bursts with initial intensity before ultimately morphing into something softer. Ozon has said that, "We start off like Bergman and end up like Lelouch." And that says it all. (French with English subtitles)

 -- Joe Baltake