I've friends who hold 5 x 2's director Francois Ozon in very high regard, as if he can do no wrong. This, like some of his others are very realistic, frank, often confrontational and make uncomfortable viewing. He's not my favourite director.I certainly think it helps if the viewer has had their share of life's relationship 'journeys', too. Not just to know what the dialogue's about but what makes some often rather unlikeable people 'tick' and to shrug off the extremely earthy talk as easily as the characters do.One of my favourite directors, Ingmar Bergman, could run a 3 hour film about relationships, as in his 'Scenes From A Marriage' and it would still hold interest til the end. 5 x 2 is much more adult, certainly less sweet but is strangely compelling.As I'm sure you know by now, this film runs in reverse, from divorce settlement right through to first meet. Don't let that worry you, it works perfectly fine and just unfolds almost as naturally as if it were the normal way round. This, my second viewing after many years, on Channel 4, is no easier to watch, however. The acting is first rate, no doubt but that intensity doesn't give one a break and one can become stifled by the film's honesty. However, first love generally being much sweeter than ugly divorce, it does get lighter toward the end, with a rather odd looking swimming into the sunset (as in Westerns) finale.My head tells me to give it 8/10 but my heart says 6, so a compromise; 7. The French songs that Ozon uses for the soundtrack though, are wonderful and get a 10!

A film that suggests a cross between Bergmans's gut-wrenching "Scenes From a Marriage" (1973) and Stanley Donen's more lighthearted "Two For the Road" (1967), mixed in a bit with that backwards "Seinfeld" episode, "5X2" (2005) is a very fine adult drama from director Francois Ozon. As the title suggests, it is comprised of five short glimpses at the doomed relationship of a handsome professional couple, Marion (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) and Gilles (Stephane Freiss). As in "Two For the Road," we see unchronological snapshots of this couple's failing marriage, but unlike the '67 film, rather than being given scattershot scenes from various periods, here we proceed continuously backward in time: from the divorce settlement and its rather icky aftermath, backward to one of the couple's dinner parties, back still to the birth of their premature son, on to their wedding party (and a most unusual wedding night, to put it mildly), and all the way back to one of their first meetings. Our foreknowledge that the couple's marriage is doomed makes the cracks in Marion and Gilles' relationship stand out all the clearer. Consequently, the pretty, upbeat ending is rendered bittersweet at best, with our preglimpse of what their future holds. "5X2" has been finely put together and features sterling acting down to the smallest bit players. It was especially great for me seeing that grand old actor, Michael Lonsdale (who will always be Hugo Drax for us Bond fanatics), still acting at age 74, here playing Marion's father. My only complaint, really, concerning "5X2" is that it is a bit on the short and sketchy side; perhaps a few extra scenes would have enabled us to more fully understand the characters' motivations, particularly Gilles' (and especially his no-show at his son's birth). This, for me, is the only thing that prevents "5X2" from being a perfect 10.

This movie wasted my time. Writing this review will not repeat this & I hope it will be useful for any potential viewers to know what they risk:The story is a reverse romance: from the ending to the meeting! But the morality of the couple is very loose: from rape to cheating (on wedding day!), among group sex or missing the child birth...Here's the menu delivered by a French "culturally correct" director.What's bothering me is the lack of his involvement: what's his message ? Maybe he dares to see what can happen under the veneer of relationships, but he offers no solution when bad things comes...Every one could have tell the same things. For a "talented" director, the audience can ask for more: so easy thus so forgettable !

François Ozon (Swimming Pool, Under the Sand, 8 Women, Water Drops on Burning Rocks, etc) is a French director with a style of telling stories that is entirely his own. He seems to revel in challenging the audience to participate intellectually and emotionally in the common stories through which we daily walk. He doesn't strive for 'the big moment' or startling revelations: he is content to place a tale before us to encourage us to re-think our own existence, our parallel lives with those of his characters.'Cinq fois deux' (5X2) is a study of a couple who meet, fall in love, marry, have a child, and divorce. But the story is told in reverse: we begin during a meeting with the lawyers who present to Marion (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi) a successful business woman, and to Gilles (Stéphane Freiss) and equally successful businessman the papers outlining their divorce settlement. All seems calm, yet after the signing the couple appears in a hotel room for one last sexual encounter that speaks volumes about their finished relationship. From that scene we move into the life they shared as a married couple with one child, a family that seems perfect, yet during a dinner party with Gilles' gay brother Christophe (Antoine Chappey) and his lover Mathieu (Marc Ruchmann) we begin to see parallels of relationship fallacies. We step back further to the wedding of Marion and Gilles where Marion's parents likewise illustrate marriages with both the sour and semi-sweet sides and the cards are on the table. And on their wedding night Gilles falls asleep on their marital bed and the frustrated Marion falls into the arms of an American stranger (Jason Tavassoli). A step further back to the courting days reveals more dissident threads, and finally the couple's original meeting at a seaside resort where Gilles is retreating with his then girlfriend Valérie (Géraldine Pailhas) suggests patterns of behavior that, knowing the ending because it was the beginning of the film, bring the audience into the realm of understanding.The cast is excellent, the lovemaking scenes are seductive and well filmed, and the transitions for the retrograde story are smooth and intriguing. The film allows us to examine three sets of relationships in detail and in doing so gives us insight as to just why trust is so important to success. Recommended. Grady Harp