5 FLIGHTS UP ★★☆
(M) Selected cinemas (92 minutes)

Aimed squarely at the baby boomer demographic, Richard Loncraine's 5 Flights Up is the kind of sleepy comedy-drama that is not only familiar but deliberately so, a chance to see a couple of Oscar-winning veterans go through their practised routines.

The filmmakers themselves are veterans of a less distinguished sort: director Loncraine is known mainly for his gimmicky Nazi-themed version of Richard III, while screenwriter Charlie Peters has a long list of credits including Three Men and a Little Lady and the talking-horse comedy Hot to Trot.

Clearly a low-budget production, the film spends around half its 90-minute running time in a single setting – the fifth-floor Brooklyn apartment of long-married couple Ruth (Diane Keaton) and Alex (Morgan Freeman), respectively a retired teacher and a moderately successful portrait painter.

Ruth and Alex have been fixtures of the neighbourhood for decades, but the hipsters are encroaching and Alex is getting too old to climb the stairs. So it's time for them to sell up, with help from their estate-agent niece (Cynthia Nixon, resembling an eager, yapping puppy). Reluctantly, they open their doors to a gaggle of potential buyers, allowing the film to indulge in some dated satire of yuppies, therapists, and other neurotic New York types.

Adapting a novel by Jill Ciment, Peters seems bent on squeezing in as many elements of his source as possible, making the film feel both overloaded and inconsequential. There's a subplot involving a terrorist threat on the Brooklyn Bridge, and another centred on the family dog, who's recovering from a life-threatening operation.

There are also flashbacks to the early years of Ruth and Alex's marriage, with sidelights on the prejudices faced by an interracial couple: here the social commentary has a little more bite, since this subject is one which Hollywood even today generally avoids tackling head on.

As storytelling, 5 Flights Up is remarkably clumsy: the narrative strands never knit together, the well-intentioned messages are awkwardly spelt out, and the stakes remain low. That said, it's an easy film to watch: while Keaton and Freeman may not do anything very surprising, they seem comfortable with the material and with each other.

Freeman in particular is almost supernaturally relaxed, and the cinematographer Jonathan Freeman – no relation, as far as I'm aware – matches his mellow mood with appropriately cosy images of Brooklyn, all worn textures, cyclists, and dappled afternoon light.