Review: 5 Flights Up

"I wish a lot of things," Alex (Morgan Freeman) tells his longtime wife Ruth (Diane Keaton). One wishes a lot of things for 5 Flights Up: a more ambitious script, less cavalier-seeming direction from Richard Loncraine, and more for its Oscar-winning leads than this oddly stagnant piffle.

Married for four decades, Alex and Ruth have seen their Brooklyn neighbourhood mutate from an out of fashion borough to one overrun with hipsters and gentrifiers. They are fortunate enough to live in an apartment where Alex's studio affords plenty of light for his painting as well as a view of the bridge. Their walk-up is beloved but becoming increasingly impractical - even their aging dog Dorothy is disheartened at having to walk up five flights of stairs.

Ruth and Alex decide to dip their toes in the real estate market with the help of Ruth's bulldozing real-estate-agent niece Lily (Cynthia Nixon), who arranges an open house for them. Alex is uncertain about a potential move; he certainly does not appreciate the prospect of his home smelling like cinnamon sticks (Lily says it will make the apartment seem homey; Alex says it smells like a whorehouse) or of people invading their space or of young couples condescending to him because of his age.

Several subplots come to the fore to expand the main plot. There's Dorothy's hospitalisation for a spinal injury, which is a cause of both emotional and financial concern. Surgery will deplete them of ten thousand dollars, but how far are they willing to go to keep her alive? Alex takes a practical approach whilst the fretful Ruth wants to do whatever it takes to keep their Dorothy alive. Then there's the citywide manhunt for a suspected terrorist who left a gasoline truck jack-knifed on the Brooklyn Bridge. Its dominance on the news stations frustrates Lily, who worries the alleged terrorist on the loose will drive away potential buyers.

There are also flashbacks to Ruth and Alex's younger days, when their biracial marriage was more of an issue. Claire van der Boom and Korey Jackson do a highly commendable job of embodying Keaton and Freeman's distinctive mannerisms, which makes it all the more disappointing how feebly supported they all are by the narrative. It's puzzling to pinpoint exactly how a story with so many potentially interesting narrative threads could feel so inconsequential. None of the subplots gain any traction, nor do they coalesce into something greater than the sum of their parts.

A lack of investment runs through the film. Dorothy's situation, for all the time it takes up, is dealt with in an offhand manner as if the seriousness of the matter was acknowledged but not necessarily understood. Loncraine seems satisfied for 5 Flights Up to be stagey and lax. There's an over-reliance on Keaton and Freeman, who are wonderful to watch together and apart, but who simply cannot overcome the film's deficiencies.

5 Flights Up

Directed by: Richard Loncraine

Written by: Charlie Peters; adapted from the novel Heroic Measures by Jill Ciment

Starring: Diane Keaton, Morgan Freeman, Cynthia Nixon, Carrie Preston, Claire van der Boom, Korey Jackson