5x2

"The back-to-front narrative structure of Francois Ozon's scenes from the dissolution of a marriage isn't new or unique -- Harold Pinter's "Betrayal" is probably the best known cinematic use of the device and Gaspare Noe's "Irreversible" is the most recent -- but Ozon applies it with sensitivity and resonance. Opening on the divorce of Marion (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) and Gilles (Stephane Freiss), a dispassionate legal ritual followed by a last fling of petty power games, and working back to the first inkling of romance (tellingly during his vacation with his longtime girlfriend), it's both a remembrance and a post-mortem in five acts..."

"A relatively sober, deftly told tale of coupledom for grown-ups, "5x2" starts on the day a divorce is pronounced and works its way backward, alighting on important moments in the relationship. Excellent perfs and writer-director Francois Ozon's sure, unfussy way with the camera add up to a viewing experience whose richness depends in large part on how much the viewer reads into the human templates on display. Pre-sold in many territories on the strength of Ozon's reputation, pic, which competes in Venice the day after its Sept. 1 opening in France, should perform reasonably well in Gaul and beyond..."

"Francois Ozon is a miniaturist. Like so many French directors, he's in love with faces.<br /><br />In the past, he's been lucky enough to have the heavy-lidded gaze of Charlotte Rampling to focus on. She was the star of two of his films, Under the Sand and Swimming Pool.<br /><br />But it's not just the Rampling effect which excites him. In 5x2, the anatomy of a modern French marriage, he brings the same measure of concentration to bear on the film's stars, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi and Stephane Freiss..."

"An anatomy of a disintegrating marriage, this is the work of French director Francois Ozon, who made the promising but ultimately very silly Swimming Pool (in this film's final scene he recycles swimming as a metaphor for romance). The trick is that the story is told in reverse: the opening cold and perfunctory divorce hearing is the first of five vignettes (hence the title) that will take us back to the lovers' meeting..."

"Two people, five moments from a marriage told in reverse: there's a neat simplicity to François Ozon's chamber piece that promises but doesn't deliver great insight into modern relationships. Beginning with Gilles (Stéphane Freiss) and Marion (Valéria Bruni-Tedeschi) as they sign their divorce papers then 'backtracking' back to key moments in their life together, Ozon's film is a slyly ironic take on affairs of the heart. Like Irreversible - but without the jolts - it's proof that time does indeed destroy all things..."