Diane Keaton and Morgan Freeman Star in the RomCom ‘5 Flights Up’

Sandra Miska

Screen legends Diane Keaton and Morgan Freeman have teamed up together for the first time in the mature romance “5 Flights Up.”  “5 Flights Up, ”that opens May 8, follows long-married couple Ruth and Alex as they pack up and prepare to sell the New York apartment they have shared during their whole 40-year marriage.

The couple hosts an open house, attracting a colorful cast of characters to trounce through their Brooklyn pad, which they purchased before their neighborhood was cool.  Not surprisingly, a crazy bidding war ensues.

The couple also takes the time to check out a few places themselves.  Ruth, a retired teacher, looks forward to moving into a smaller place with an elevator, while Alex, a painter, is somewhat reluctant.

Adding to the craziness, all this occurs during a weekend when New York City is on high alert due to a gasoline tank being stuck in a Midtown tunnel.  The driver fled the scene, and there’s speculation that he may be a terrorist.

Moviegoers should also be prepared for tear-jerking moments, mostly involving Ruth and Alex’s sick dog.

Glimpses of pre-gentrified Brooklyn and the couple in the early days of marriage are shown in flashbacks in which newcomers Claire van der Boom and Korey Jackson play the younger Ruth and Alex, and viewers see the hardships a young interracial couple faced in those days.

The cast also includes Cynthia Nixon as Ruth and Alex’s intense real estate agent.

“5 Flights Up” is based on the novel Heroic Measure by Jill Ciment. In the novel, Ruth and Alex are both white and Jewish, so the casting of Keaton and Freeman is quite a departure.  In a recent interview with Word & Film, Ciment discussed this change.

“It’s a fabulous cast.  ….The thing that was very interesting about the casting for me is that part of the story in Heroic Measures is about, essentially, old communists who lived their lives not believing in profit and are sort of put in this circumstance where they’re going to become millionaires and they’re taking advantage of a terrorist strike and it brings out their morality.  Whereas Diana Keaton and Morgan Freeman are like a visual version of two people who’ve lived on the edge, because they would have married when it was illegal in thirty states.”

“5 Flights Up” opens May 8.