Director François Ozon changes genres and styles so prolifically—from the Hitchcockian thrillers See The Sea and Swimming Pool to the chamber dramas Under The Sand and Water Drops On Burning Rocks to the cheery musical 8 Women—that he's a tough auteur to pin down. If there's a common denominator, it may be the feeling that love is possible, but relationships are doomed to failure or death. That cynicism pervades Ozon's crisp marital drama 5×2, which follows a couple from the end of their marriage to the beginning of their courtship, with pointed stops in between. The structure, with five segments ordered in reverse chronology, is akin to starting with a collapsed house and then revealing the termites that were eating away at the foundation from day one. For anyone who's ever reflected on a past relationship and wondered when the seeds of its destruction were laid, the film should resonate strongly. Then again, most people could avoid these problems by never hooking up with a two-timing jerk.
The jerk in question is Stéphane Freiss, a sullen, passive-aggressive businessman first seen in a lawyer's office, quietly accepting divorce terms next to his wife Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi. The two head back to a hotel room for a desultory sexual interlude that feels regrettable to both even before it turns into something like a rape. From there, 5X2 goes back in time: The second sequence shows Freiss and Bruni-Tedeschi hosting Freiss' gay brother and his much younger lover, who share an open relationship that satisfies them both. The third deals with their son's birth, which reveals many of the anxieties seizing their unstable union, and the fourth takes place on their wedding night, a joyous occasion with an unexpected coda. All of which leads back to the beginning, when the two connect while on separate vacations at an Italian resort hotel.
Four of 5X2's five segments are set during key events in any such relationship—first meeting, marriage, childbirth, and divorce—but the evening with Freiss' brother and his lover may be the segment that most indicates what Ozon's getting at. Infidelity gnaws away at the trust that's supposed to bond this marriage, but to Fleiss' brother, it seems unnatural for a loving relationship to be hinged on faithfulness, especially when the partners are incapable of holding up their end of the bargain. The film could be read as a potent critique of heterosexual relationships, which are founded on rules that wind up damaging trust more than they strengthen it. Unlike Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind, which holds the memories of a doomed affair as precious, there's nothing bittersweet about Ozon's failed romance, but its problems are equally true.