So-so drama about a relationship that goes bad(kind of). The movie starts with the divorce papers being signed and then goes backwards all the way to their first encounter together. This awkward style is actually pulled off pretty well by director and writer Francois Ozon but what's wrong with the movie is that you don't really understand why things started in the first place and why it ended the way it did. There are hints, but nothing is really spelled out. It's more a chronicle of what happened with very little detail on the why's. This might work if the viewer cared about the characters but Ozon does very little in the area of background with the people involved in the story. With no depth in the characters, it is a very flat experience for the viewer. I'm usually impressed with European films because of their focus on the characters but this one didn't do anything for me despite Ozon's critically-acclaimed background.

This movie wasted my time. Writing this review will not repeat this & I hope it will be useful for any potential viewers to know what they risk:The story is a reverse romance: from the ending to the meeting! But the morality of the couple is very loose: from rape to cheating (on wedding day!), among group sex or missing the child birth...Here's the menu delivered by a French "culturally correct" director.What's bothering me is the lack of his involvement: what's his message ? Maybe he dares to see what can happen under the veneer of relationships, but he offers no solution when bad things comes...Every one could have tell the same things. For a "talented" director, the audience can ask for more: so easy thus so forgettable !

The film 5 X 2 is a series of troubling scenes from a marriage, told in reverse order. It moves from a rather passionless, but painful divorce proceeding, through some violent goodbye sex, a plea for reconciliation by the former husband, all the way to the moment that they fell in love. Between those extremes they were never very good to each other for any length of time. The husband, Gilles, being aggressively cruel, while the wife, Marion, is passively cruel to her spouse. The motives and motivations behind these actions are never significantly explained and the viewer is left to fill in the blank spaces.Being puzzled by the ambiguity of some of the events in the film (Just Like Swimming Pool), I went to the deleted scenes and found a prologue that was not included in the final cut of the film. The scene implies that the couple at some point reconcile and are again living together. Marion awakes and moves about the home that is piled with moving boxes. She goes to one box and removes a book "Histoire d'O" (The Story of O) and a scarf. For those who are unaware, this a book about sadomasochism/dominance and submission, and a woman's experiences with it. Reading a bit of the book, she puts it down and goes to make coffee. She later re-enters the room, finds Gilles reading the same book, sneaks up behind him and blindfolds him with the scarf, while kissing him. Gilles removes the scarf and uses it to bind her hands behind her. They begin the preliminaries of lovemaking but part instead. They end up laying side by side, looking at their surroundings, glancing at one another.This scene implies that the individuals have made personal growth and had come to recognize that their previous marriage had been based on dominance and submission and neither of them wished to return to the sadomasochistic relationship of their past. It also implies, as they both look about, neither of them really have any idea where to begin, if this is not to be the nature of their new relationship. Of course, knowing what you don't want is a start of sorts. It's a great scene, quiet, somber and reflective. More importantly, it is hopeful. Hopeful, that even damaged people can learn and grow. It's too bad that it did not make the final cut of the film. What we do have in the film is probably more realistic--all too often love ends--but hopefully we do take something better to our next beginning. The final scene in 5 x 2 reminds each of us just how beautiful love can be. It is worth a viewing for that reason alone.

Justso you think I care about how much sex. There are 5 episodes, and basically each of them is about sex. But the deteriorating relationship between the two people amounts to growing frustration by the wife. It is hard to understand why the husband would not show up at the birth of his child (or at the hospital later), but it is at least easier to understand that she was frustrated on her wedding night. The story is just an epiphany for the viewer about how much she put up with, from the very beginning. It is the reverse depiction of the deterioration of the relationship. But really it was bad from the beginning, it just took her so long to come to the feeling that he was who he was and was not going to change and he was totally self-controlled. But, this is the story. The cinematography was well done, the dialog very sophisticated.