At a time when the romantic drama is all but on the endangered-species list, writer-director Victor Levin tacked straight into a headwind with his new film, 5 to 7.
The romance, which opens in New York and Los Angeles today (4/3/15) before platforming to more cities and VOD in a week, is the story of a love affair between a 25-year-old would-be writer, Brian (Anton Yelchin), and an older, married Frenchwoman, Arielle (Berenice Marlohe).
They meet one day when he lights her cigarette outside the St. Regis Hotel. What follows is an affair to remember -- for both of them. She and her husband, a French diplomat, have an agreement that allows them to take lovers as long as they live by strict rules. Because Arielle finds Brian charming, funny and sincere, she eventually casts him in that role for her. The arrangement of this French marriage is so civilized that Brian is invited to dinner parties at the couple's house, along with Arielle's husband's young mistress (Olivia Thirlby) and family friends.
It's a movie about love -- finding it, feeling it, losing it -- and Levin, a screenwriter and former writer and producer on TV shows ranging from Mad About You to Mad Men, believes there's still an audience for a complicated love story -- all evidence to the contrary.
"We're living in a pathologically snarky and ironic age," he admits over dinner before a recent screening of his film at The Picture House in Pelham, NY.
This interview continues on my website.