Ruth & Alex

A cinema can be a cosy place for an afternoon nap, and if you’re looking for a film completely free of loud explosions, raised voices or anything actually happening, you can’t go wrong with this fusty New York fairytale. Ruth (Diane Keaton) and Alex (Morgan Freeman) have lived in their beloved Brooklyn apartment for 40 years. But they’re not getting any younger, and five flights of stairs are becoming a problem. They soon learn that selling the old pad isn’t as straightforward as either of them expected and zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Sorry, we zoned out for a moment there. Won’t happen again. Anyway, ‘Ruth & Alex’ spans the emotional spectrum from kooky to winsome, as the bickering couple show wacky strangers around the apartment, haggle over asking prices and suffer hazy, saccharine flashbacks to their early days together, and zzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Sorry, we’re back, we’re back. So unprofessional. As well as being soul-crushingly tedious, ‘Ruth & Alex’ is also incredibly self-satisfied, clearly expecting bonus points for featuring a mixed-race couple up front (come on, it’s 2015), and throwing in an off-screen subplot about a crash on the Williamsburg Bridge as an excuse to make trite generalisations about post 9-11 angst. So unless you’re a raging insomniac or a New York real-estate fetishist, we’d strongly advise you to think twice before... zzzzzzzzzzzz...