5 Flights Up

In 1975 Korey Jackson and Claire van der Boom buy a cheap fifth-floor walk-up in unfashionable Brooklyn. By the time 2015 rolls around, they have grown old and turned into Diane Keaton and Morgan Freeman, and the stairs are a real problem. Even their little dog can barely make the climb. But the good news is that their area of Brooklyn is trendy now, and the apartment which really has only its location and its great view to recommend it, is now worth around a million dollars. They reluctantly decide to sell it and move to somewhere with an elevator. But it’s hard. There are too many good memories.

They list the place, and soon the absolute scum of hoity-toity New Yorkers (and there are few scummier) are traipsing through the place, making snide remarks. The mother of one child who should have been drowned at birth tells Diane “We never say no to little Jeffrey.” Child rearing in the 21st century! So they are not thrilled with what they are doing. Morgan in particular is having doubts. It is really crazy, with numbers being bandied about like 850, 880, no make that 881! Thousand! They are sneaking up on the one million mark.

But they go out looking for another apartment, this time in Manhattan. And we see just how really, really insane the housing market is in the Big Apple. The first place they see is a real dump, with an elevator that barely works and a view of the elevated trains that shriek by every five minutes. Asking price? One point one. Million. Insane!

Okay, it’s pretty predictable. I knew after fifteen minutes how it would all turn out. But it’s a lot of fun to watch these pros working together. It’s also interesting, to me, that hardly anything was made of the fact that they are a mixed race couple. At one point Keaton points out that when they were married, miscegenation was illegal in thirty states. And that’s about it. When we have reached a point where a comedy about such a couple is not about race, I think we have come a long way since I was a child. Still a long way to go, but look on the bright side!