6/10

Morgan Freeman and Diane Keaton are seeking a more down to Earth residence from their current apartment that sits ‘5 Flights Up’. Forty years ago, painter Alex Carver (Morgan Freeman) bought a run-down apartment in a sketchy part of Brooklyn with his wife, schoolteacher Ruth (Diane Keaton). Today, their neighborhood is now inhabited by the trendy, and their apartment worth a small fortune. The now retired Ruth and Alex haven’t changed, as they are still as much in love as ever. But they have let Ruth’s niece Lily (Cynthia Nixon), a real estate agent, list their property to see what the market might bear. On the eve of their open house, the Brooklyn Bridge is rumored to be under a terrorist attack, sending the media into a frenzy and people’s attitudes about living in New York. What Richard Loncraine’s (Wimbledon) feature film lacks in structural support, it more than makes up for in a sturdy foundation headed by national treasures, Freeman and Keaton. This is easily Morgan’s most charasmatic role in ten years, and it’s in a lot of his veteran acting that he takes a mediocre scene and makes it a lot more with relatable logic, and hilarious reactions in leaving the camera where it should be. Oddly enough, the duo never kiss in the entire film, but i found their relationship to be believable based on an on-screen chemistry that feels like they were best friends long before they ever got married. Their relationship is one of a past era, and it’s their comparisons to the modern age that makes Loncraine’s script smarter than just another romantic over-the-hill story. I took a lot more social commentary about an ever-evolving world from this film than i did from last month’s ‘While Were Young’. The two protagonists struggle with cell phones, as well as rising surgical bills from their ailing dog, and it feels very relatable despite not being in their age bracket. That is one thing that a lot of other films offering a microscopic look on today’s world could take a lesson from. The film never feels forced into these points, even with a terrorist storyline that pops out of left field. It’s dialysis of the media and how paranoid they have become in the fourteen years following 9/11 is well documented, but it’s a storyline that doesn’t exactly give us the defining moment needed to really make the casual filmgoer think. These are some of the minor problems that the film runs into. The movie sort of just stands still with little progression for the better part of the film’s second act. Characters who play a big part in the first half of the movie disappear for good during a second half that searches for an ending to give the audience more than just good performances from our two protagonists. The movie instills a message that the greatest things in our lives may be under our noses the whole time, and while it’s a predictable turn, it’s one that is warm and well worth the climb.