5x2 (Cinq fois deux)

(François Ozon, 2004)

Unspectacular but very solid slice of marital breakup drama, soberly told in five vignettes, starting with the divorce and working its way backwards to the happy days. The acting is uniformly excellent and naturalistic, with leads Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Stéphane Freiss turning in great performances as the two spouses. Not entirely clear on Ozon's reasons for the whole reversed chronology thing, but thankfully, it never felt gimmicky or annoying.

[pro]