Watch 5 Flights Up (2014)

Ruth and Alex Carver have spent forty years of marriage in the same fifth floor walk-up in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Alex (Morgan Freeman) is a painter who turned one of the rooms into his studio. Ruth (Diane Keaton) is a retired schoolteacher who has finally admitted that the stairs are winning. When their niece and real estate agent Lily (Cynthia Nixon) convinces them to list the apartment, what should be a simple weekend of open houses turns into a referendum on the life they built inside those four walls. The timing could not be worse. Their aging dog Dorothy collapses and needs expensive surgery, a security scare on the Williamsburg Bridge takes over every news channel and frightens off buyers, and a parade of strangers wanders through their home offering opinions on everything from the kitchen tiles to the view. Bids come in, bids fall apart, and Alex quietly begins to sabotage the sale he never wanted in the first place. Between negotiations, flashbacks reveal the young couple (Korey Jackson and Claire van der Boom) who moved into the neighborhood in the 1970s, when a Black man married to a white woman still drew stares on the street. Directed by Richard Loncraine and adapted by Charlie Peters from Jill Ciment's novel Heroic Measures, 5 Flights Up is a gentle, funny and quietly moving portrait of aging, real estate and long marriage. Freeman and Keaton, both Academy Award winners, are effortless together, and the film uses one property listing to ask a much bigger question: when is it time to move on, and what does it cost to stay? Running 92 minutes and released in some markets as Ruth & Alex, this comedy drama is perfect for viewers who love character driven stories, New York settings and films about relationships that last. Watch 5 Flights Up online now on Tesliya.

2014