by Frank Calvillo
Box Office Alternative Column
Box Office Alternative is a weekly look into additional/optional choices to the big-budget spectacle opening up at your local movie theater every Friday. Oftentimes, titles will consist of little-known or underappreciated work from the same actor/writer/director/producer of said new release, while at other times, the selection for the week just happens to touch upon the same subject in a unique way. Above all, this is a place to revisit and/or discover forgotten cinematic gems of all kinds.
The loveable character of Dory returns this week along with Marlon, Nemo, and a new batch of characters in Finding Dory, which sees the title character trying to reunite with her long-lost parents Charlie and Jenny, the latter of whom is voiced by Diane Keaton.
It’s a rare voice-over role for Keaton, whose unique energy radiantly adapts to the animated format. The film proves a fun turn for the actress and has provided this movie lover with the perfect excuse to write about one of Keaton’s most recent turns — the unjustly ignored, yet eternally whimsical, 5 Flights Up.
Having lived in Brooklyn for decades, longtime married couple Ruth (Keaton) and Alex (Morgan Freeman) have decided to move due to the fact that their apartment building has no elevator and the latter now has difficulty climbing up the stairs. The two have enlisted the help of their realtor niece Lily (Cynthia Nixon) to hold an open house, which brings a number of intriguing offers on Ruth and Alex’s apartment. As the two mull each of the offers over, they reflect on the life they’ve shared and begin to question what lies ahead for them as they leave the only world they’ve ever known together.
5 Flights Up is one of those slice of life features with an elegiac feel to it which depends far more on character-driven instances, rather than an intricately-plotted story. There’s a charming, breezy feel to the whole movie, which manages to slow down at the right times in order to appreciate the quieter moments. The film operates on a collection of great scenes that work just because it’s great to watch these two people at this certain point in their lives. It’s hard to fall in love with characters in such a short time span, but the beauty and power of 5 Flights Up is that you instantly become enamored with Ruth and Alex because of the comfort and bliss of their marriage. You understand all they have experienced and endured together, from his career as an artist to her frustration at not being able to have children. The two act as a team. It’s them against the craziness of the real world and those they encounter in it. Through it all, they have each other, and that is all they need.
Despite the story being set in New York, director Richard Loncraine manages an intimate, play-like essence to the film. This is helped immensely by Freeman’s narration, which proves essential to making the film feel as special as it does. Meanwhile, the cinematography makes New York look so incredibly literary, giving it a timeless quality that adds more magic to the movie. This is an incredibly New York movie through and through, not because of shots of Radio City or the Met, but because of the non-landmarks on display here. The film gets the feel of New York in the views, nondescript city streets and in the eclectic group of people who come through Ruth and Alex’s door.
Nixon is great in the film, providing comic relief in a role different to what audiences are used to seeing her play, while Korey Jackson and Claire van der Boom are so compulsively watchable as the younger versions of Ruth and Alex, helping to illustrate what it is about this couple which makes them so incredibly special.
However the film belongs to Keaton and Freeman, who enjoy two of the greatest roles they’ve had in quite some time. The two actors continue to be staples on movie screens with no signs of slowing down. However, of late neither one has enjoyed a project such as this, which brings out their best qualities as actors. Sometimes actors are paired up simply because producers think that they’ll automatically work well together. Here, such an assumption actually works and works wonderfully. Keaton and Freeman share the kind of chemistry that’s so hard to capture, making every scene they share seem effortless and real.
5 Flights Up received kind reviews from critics when released in 2015, with many citing the chemistry between the two leads as the film’s strongest feature. For some reason, however, the majority of audiences never got to experience that magic chemistry as the film languished in limited release, rather than going on to becoming the indie success it should have been.
There’s a strong generational comment that exists throughout 5 Flights Up, which will ring as true to anyone of the same demographic. Are Ruth and Alex meant to check out now that he can’t climb the stairs and their neighborhood is a haven for hipsters? Do they find someplace quieter and resign themselves to the fact that their final years are approaching? No, they simply keep soldiering on the way they always have.
