Director: Billy Wilder
Note: Minor plot spoilers
It's hard to know where to begin with The Apartment, a story that is as old as written stories are, yet so carefully updated to modern times. The titular apartment is that of C.C. Baxter (Lemmon), who rents it out to his philandering superiors at the behemoth insurance company he works for. This causes some obvious discomfort for him, and that discomfort begins to grow as the film progresses.
There's some brilliant visual work on display in this film, but what really sells it are the acting performances. Lemmon is superb as the put-upon Baxter, MacLaine excellent as the lovelorn Fran Kubelik, and Fred MacMurray might even outdo both of them as the swaggering personnel manager.
Wilder's detractors cast him as a cynical misanthrope, and I can kind of see that here. Still, aside from some broad performances by supporting players and minor quibbles with the film's ending, this is a stunning achievement.
i saw this a long time ago, and other than the impression that its maker must have been a cynical misanthrope, macmurray's swagger is all i remember.
ReplyDeletethat is totally understandable. if i may hazard an explanation for why that is:
ReplyDelete1. lemmon's character is pretty much a loser with almost no defining characteristics. he's obsequious, easily cowed, a cipher. throw in the fact that he in many ways repeated this performance in glengarry glen ross, and i think it's easy to forget how good he is at playing this loser guy.
2. shirley maclaine's character doesn't have much going for her either. at the end of the film we don't really know her.
3. mcmurray's character is obviously the most interesting in the film, which is part of the point.
4. the rest of the characters are forgettable or played ridiculously broad.
now all this adds up to what sounds like a boring movie, but i think the triumph of the film is to make these characters compelling during the time you spend with them.