Posts Tagged ‘Berenice Marlohe’

5 to 7

Director: Victor Levin

Cast: Anton Yelchin, Berenice Marlohe, Glenn Close, Frank Langella, Olivia Thirlby

Written and directed by Victor Levin, 5 to 7 is a charming romantic drama set in New York in spring time. Anton Yelchin plays lonely and struggling writer Brian Bloom who one Friday casually offers a beautiful woman a light for a cigarette outside a swish Manhattan restaurant. The lady in question is the gorgeous former Bond girl, French actress Berenice Marlohe (Skyfall), who plays a diplomats young wife, Arielle.

Soon Bloom is captivated by Arielle and she informs him that they can only see each other between 5 to 7pm in the evening. Surprisingly, Arielle’s husband Valery is played by Lambert Wilson and he even acknowledges his wife’s much younger lover. As the relationship develops so does their cultural exploration of each other’s different background, with Levin frequently comparing the best of French culture with the worst of American culture.

Apparently in French society extramarital affairs are the norm as long as the respective mistresses and lovers obey the rules laid down before them. In Bloom and Arielle’s case this is a 2hour gap mainly in which they take in some of New York’s most beautiful sites including the Guggenheim Museum and Central Park along with some elegant Manhattan hotels including The St Regis and The Carlyle.

Arielle is taken to meet Bloom’s doting parents expertly played by Glenn Close (Dangerous Liaisons, Meeting Venus) and Frank Langella (Frost/ Nixon, Grace of Monaco) who are slightly exasperated by their son’s romantic entanglement. Bloom, wonderfully played by Anton Yelchin even seeks the advice of Valery’s American mistress Jane played with tenacity by Olivia Thirlby (Juno, Dredd and No Strings Attached).

As this romance runs its course, Bloom soon matures into an established writer after one of his short stories is selected for the prestigious literary magazine The New Yorker.

Arielle naturally becomes Bloom’s writing muse and once the relationship starts to fade, he is forced to move on with a sort of nostalgic complicity which forces him to write his great novel, entitled The Mermaid.

5 to 7 is a charming Audrey Hepburn style romance seldom seen onscreen these days and more significantly is a sophisticated cinematic tribute to New York itself, which as a city has been the setting for many great romances including Autumn in New York and One Fine Day. Highly recommended viewing, intelligently written and beautifully acted. A rare cinematic treat to be cherished as much as the delights of the Big Apple itself.

Skyfall

Super Suave Spy Back on his Home Turf

From Shanghai to Scotland, Skyfall, the 23^rd film in the James Bond franchise is both an intriguing espionage thriller closer to a John le Carre novel, yet beautifully retaining all the quintessential 007 traits which have made all the Bond films the most successful franchise in cinema history from fast cars, exotic locations, dangerous animals and naturally nubile Bond girls leading the smartly suited spy to the evil villain who is always masterminding destruction, mayhem or in this case, revenge.

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There was much anticipation leading up to Skyfall as it also marked 50 years of James Bond, when the first Bond film burst on the screen in 1962 introducing Sean Connery as Bond in the exotic Dr No. Whilst a lot has changed in 50 years, the essence of Bond as a suave, international spy chasing after megalomaniac villains in far corners of the globe has always been the same. In Skyfall, whilst there is more angst explored in the relationship between Bond and M, there is an equal share for the hideously brilliant villain, Raoul Silva, played with psychotic panache by Oscar-winner Javier Bardem who is hell bent on revenging M, head of Mi6 for allowing him to be captured by the Chinese as the British relinquished Hong Kong in 1997.

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Skyfall also marks a departure from other Bond films in that there is less exotic locations outside the UK but more British based action which is equally thrilling especially the Tennyson quoting assassination sequence in Westminster or the brilliant explosive climax at Bond’s long forgotten Scottish family estate Skyfall in rural Scotland.

What really raises the level Skyfall is the brilliant direction by Sam Mendes of American Beauty and Revolutionary Road fame, who not being an action director brings more dysfunctional characterization and interpersonal twists to the Skyfall narrative complimented by the brilliant acting talents of Bardem apparently handpicked by Daniel Craig to play the villain and of course Dame Judi Dench as M, Bond’s shadowy, yet tough mother figure. All Bond’s mother issues are resolved in Skyfall along with coming to terms with a tragic childhood in the remote Scottish highlands.

50 Years of 007: The Actors Might Change but the Characters Remaining Intriguing…

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Skyfall is superb yet not conventional multi-layered Bond film crisply shot by Roger Deakins’s excellent photography especially noticeable in the Shanghai Skyscraper sequence, and while the action sequences are not as outlandish as some of the previous more bizarre Bond films such as Moonraker or The Spy Who Loved Me, this is the threadbare, recession hit 21^st century and not the lavish late 1970’s.

Daniel Craig holds his own in his third portrayal as Bond and is more comfortable in this iconic role as a razor-sharp, still sexy and slightly jaded spy always ready for action. From a fabulous attention-grabbing chase scene in Istanbul to the wonderful opening sequence which is both lethal and seductive, choreographed to British singer Adele’s gorgeous rendition of the themesong: Skyfall, viewers are promised a seductive, slick and emotionally engaging Bond film.

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Of particular note is the engaging encounter between Bond and the ruthless suggestive villain Silva, an expert internet hacker in an abandoned island outside the Special Administrative Region of Macau. The scene between Craig and Bardem is absolutely superb with Javier Bardem using the full range of deviancy as the enemy of Mi6 and a ruthless hypnotic villain. Skyfall is razor sharp cinema, occasionally funny and essentially British and promises not the end of a franchise but an elegant re-alignment of the Bond universe for the Second Decade of the 21^st century living up to the charming Bond family motto, The World is Not Enough….