lunes, 31 de agosto de 2015

5 Flights Up


5 Flights Up

It's hard to let go of something that is wrapped in memories especially if it has reached old age in perfect harmony. But it is also hard to resist when the real estate boom leads to speculation and is perceived to have more past than future more clearly, if possible, to climb five floors without lift. There is nothing in this film that is not real as life itself, hence call it "drama" it seems excessive, is certainly a film about the elderly, on the degradation of life in big cities and the time spent and above all on our historical moment that seems made of equal parts of vulgarity, irrelevance, risks and instability.

We can advise seamless this film to fans of Morgan Freeman and Diane Keaton. To them to defend a weak and wasted many times despite the good start script. Despite their long careers (the Freeman goes back to the mid-sixties and his costar started in the theater in 1968 with the performance of the rock opera Hair on Broadway) had never met in the same film. In the seventies both were already sufficiently known (Freeman was one of the unforgettable inmates who accompanied Robert Redford in Brubaker 1980, while Diane Keaton had achieved early fame as a girlfriend of Michael Corleone in The Godfather 1972), but his career they drifted in different directions.

When we commented recently Ricki film, we said that one of the successes of Meryl Streep have known her age with dignity. Far from any cosmetic surgery and even temptation she applied small facial retouching, naive in view of Hollywood habit of trying to keep the same smoothness of the face in the first century of life and a progressively swollen lips that make you forget those eyes every less bright than any surgery can restore. Well, that same can be said of the two protagonists of 5 Flights up, if you have been chosen to star in this film is because they assume their roles autumn quite naturally without trying to deceive the time.

This is a film in which actors interpret the growing problems that appear as maturity is being replaced by the elderly. They embroider interpretations probably because in his career they have played the most unbelievable records because they have always been particularly interested in caring roles they interpret. Undoubtedly, Diane Keaton's career was during a time inseparable Woody Allen, but she was able, in the years lived with him, her being nominated for the award for best actress in Reds 1981 filmed shortly after she starred Interiors 1979, almost a consequence of Annie Hall 1977 filmed when the actress was at the zenith of his relationship with Allen.
As it regards Freeman, who remember it being done roles of old since he starred as Ned Logan, a gunman who had doubled back in Unforgiven 1992 movie in which he even embroiders his role as body exposed in coffin at the entrance of "living" Far West. He had already before us excited about Driving Miss Daisy 1989 and would do as Seven police in 1995 and more recently in Oblivion 2013. If you have chosen these titles it is because no one seems to earlier and they are showing the versatility of this actor who is close to 80, nine more than Diane Keaton.

If this is what can be said of the two pillars of the film should also remember the path of the director Richard Loncraine, a British shaped by the BBC, multifaceted and that lavishes little (just eleven films in forty years and as many television movies). We recall, for example, The Missionary 1982 starring Michael Palin (ex-Monty Python, then still in office) and Richard III 1995 adaptation of the work of Shakeaspeare to the thirties in which fascism was progressing and that deserved to be nominated for several Oscar, received the BAFTA awards and won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival. Loncraine, despite a rather small films, he is no first-and it shows in the field of the camera, interior scenes and flashbacks management.

Thanks to the good offices of Loncraine and the main characters, which should be the only decision-making on the sale of an apartment in Brooklyn, he becomes a review of the state of New York society. Their reactions to the phenomenon of terrorism, the increasing degradation of the living conditions in the Big Apple, poor education of new generations and psychological characteristics of much of the population, their manias, business veterinarians when we are love our pets and, ultimately, the fears surrounding a couple who are hopelessly rights to old age. And all to try to jump on the bandwagon of the real estate boom, that pretend to sell and buy something in a hurry, as if we were across the street on the sidewalk of happiness, as if the meadow us to see the other side, we seem greener that we have inadvertently referred to the freshness and vitality of the grass that we are treading.

The script fails. Written by Charlie Peters Canadian not hurry the possibilities of the subject and even leaves some dark spots. Lacks surprises climax situations, unexpected turns as much as you can spare some metaphors too forced; It would have been appreciated the arrival of the unexpected at any time. The viewer does not notice the duration of the projection because it is fun following the interpretations of the two main characters and only when the room lights are on, he realizes that this tape has lacked something to be a memorable film. Perhaps it was that the writer has found it must respect the general lines of the novel by Jill Clement, Heroic Measures, and did not have enough freedom to evolve the narrative by most striking ways.


At the end of the projection one can not avoid experiencing a bittersweet but the viewer must not leave the screening room or else you will lose the credits accompanied by delicious ballad Have I told you letaly I love you by Van Morrison. Forty years of marriage the couple do react as one person, but they are hesitant to make a decision (the sale of the apartment) and the people around them as well as the context, seems to suggest that the number of morons per square meter is increasing day by day. Well, despite all this, if you decide to live, he has no choice but to do everything possible to be happy. This is the positive message of the film. Be happy you too.

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