Saccharine, overwhelmingly melodramatic and filmed with a glossy sheen, one is either quickly won over by the charms of the romantic drama 5 to 7 or simply turned off from the start.
Though Yelchin does not elevate his role much above pasty callowness, Marlohe brings to hers a luminous irony and melancholy that makes her the ideal elusive beauty of hyper-romantic adolescent dreams.
The Brian-and-Arielle story never quite feels believable; it plays more like a novel than a genuine love story, like a work in progress, rather than a beginning and, inevitably, an end.
While it doesn't exactly take your breath away, this small coming-of-age story will make you smile about how film can romanticise even the slightest of ideas.
There aren't many surprises in "5 to 7," unless you count such startlingly cliched bits of dialogue as "Life is a collection of moments" and "There's no free lunch."
