Release Date: 11 November 2004 (Exclusively at Cathay Cineplex Orchard & OM Golden)

Synopsis :

In reverse chronological order, 5 x 2 tells the tale of Gilles and Marion, a young couple in their 30s. The film features five crucial moments of their life – the meeting, the marriage, the birth, the arguments, the divorce, leaving audiences with a life lesson about living as a couple.

Movie Review:

"5 X 2" shares many similarity on what local couples may have gone through. The film brings audience through the life of this young couple, Gilles and Marion, in a reverse chronological manner, which was divided into five main parts critical to the couple’s life: Divorce, family life, childbirth, Marriage, and the couple’s first encounters.

Watching a movie that starts with the ending may not be helpful for those “straight-minded” audiences. However, if one were patient enough, the bits and pieces will soon fell into places and the whole jigsaw puzzle would reveal, leaving audience to interpret the story from their own experiences.

The film opens with the troubled-looking couple hearing their divorce proceedings. Surprisingly, the newly-divorce couple still ended up making out in a hotel room after the divorce proceedings. One could have interpreted that both are still in love with each other, however, their many misdeeds along their marriage had made their breakup irreversible.

Turning back the clock, Marion is an energetic and vibrant career woman who enjoys dressing up and home party whereas Gilles looks tired and wore out, attending to the routine stuff at home, including taking care of the son and other house chores. There were signs at this stage that both are having mark differences in their opinion and worst, were unwilling to communicate.

The timeline then push further back to the birth of the couple’s son, where Gilles was a busy working class man who seems unready and disturbed when he received news that Marion was due for delivery. Bizarrely, he cowardly stayed away from the hospital, failing his duty both as a supportive husband and father to-be.

Next, the time was bought back to their marriage day. Audience would realized that the mistakes actually kicks off right from this day when Marion pull off an “unfaithful” plotline with an American stranger while the unwary, newly-web husband were dead-drunk inside the hotel room.

The happiest moments, which the couple had, should be the day when they first met each other. In this concluding part of the film, most audiences would definitely disapprove of the crush since the romantic beginning would eventually met with a dreadful end.

It is always emotionally challenging watching a film that contained “life-lessons”, especially when the morale of the story is nowhere optimistic. 5 X 2 is a reality check of marriage life. The marriage break up of Gilles and Marion was inevitable. In fact, one may even agreed that their separation was the best way out for both of them.

Although much life-lessons were conveyed to the audience, unfortunately, such disturbing film genre might not be box-office friendly.

Movie Rating: B-

Review by Leosen Teo