François Ozon's 5x2 (2004)

The slightly odd title relates to the form of the film, which, like arguably all of François Ozon's movies, is experimental. The movie is in five parts, each separated by a blank screen for a few seconds, but the parts are in reverse chronological order, essentially concerning two (2) married people. As with most of Ozon's films, people – particularly couples, who are hardly ever, or only briefly, couples at all – overwhelmingly don't get on with each other.

The first part begins in the solicitor's office, where the protagonists Gilles Ferron (Stéphane Freiss) and Marion (Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi) get divorced. They then go to a hotel and have sex, although this is far more like a rape. After staging an obviously fake suicide attempt while Marion is in the bathroom, Gilles pathetically asks Marion if there's any chance of reconciliation, which she replies to by leaving without a word.

The second part is an evening dinner party at Gilles and Marion's place – not long before the first part, although it's uncertain exactly when – and Gille's brother Christophe (Antoine Chappey) joins them with his younger boyfriend Mathieu (Marc Ruchmann). Here infidelity is talked about, with Mathieu speaking of its unimportance (Christophe agreeing), and Gilles speaking of an orgy he and his wife went too, in which he engaged in extramarital sex (with Marion's assent), but without her participation. After Mathieu (who is going to a party) and Christophe (who Mathieu suggests is too old for it) leave and Gilles (in contradiction to what he has said to Christophe in private) tells Marion that the gay couple's relationship won't last very long and that (although the viewer hasn't heard this) Christophe and Mathieu don't have sex.

The third part begins in a hospital corridor and Marion has given birth prematurely. It's by no means certain why Gilles goes with his mother-in-law to see the baby but doesn't see Marion herself, only phones her.

The fourth part opens with the wedding vows, the reception and the 'happy' couple going to bed but doing nothing because Gilles falls asleep while Marion is primed for sex. Marion gets dressed, avoids the reception where only her parents are dancing and Christophe is chatting up the waiter over a spliff, and meets a young American who forces himself upon her although she passionately responds eventually, to return guiltily to her new husband to tell him (while he's asleep) that she loves him.

The final part is set in Italy, where Gilles is on holiday with his former girlfriend Valérie (Géraldin Pailhas). They obviously have a number of differences and while there, he coincidentally meets Marion, someone he vaguely knows from work, and she's on holiday on her own four months after finsihing with her boyfriend. When Valérie goes off for a day on her own they meet, ask each other personal questions and go off for a swim in the sea. And so ends another Ozon film, but at the beginning.