5 to 7

5 to 7 (2014) takes its title from a French expression: cinq à sept, five to seven. In France the phrase describes the late afternoon and is traditionally understood as the window set aside for affairs. Everyone has left work and nobody has gone home yet. Brian is twenty four, lives in New York and is trying to become a writer. He meets Arielle on the street. She is French, thirty three, married and has two children. She sets the terms plainly: five days a week, between five and seven, and nothing else. The strange part is this: her husband knows and is untroubled, because he has an arrangement of his own. Brian is admitted into the system and invited to dinner. The whole comedy of the film is an American sensibility meeting a French arrangement. Then Brian stops wanting to keep to the rule, and the story comes out of that. Anton Yelchin carries the film. He died in 2016 at twenty seven, and this is among his least known and best performances. The last fifteen minutes are the best part and do not go where you expect. It runs 98 minutes. Good for: quiet romantic drama, New York films, and stories about writers. Less good for: infidelity is normalised and some will find that uncomfortable. The pace is slow and little happens.