Das Appartement

Certain films travel in time, undisturbed. Always relevant. "The Apartment" is such a film. Jack Lemmon at the top of his form and the luminous Shirley MacLaine at the center of this bitter romantic comedy. The cynics with the keys and the ambition are also the corruptors of the little man. The ones dangling the golden carrot. Billy Wilder finds a way out, where love, if not triumphs, survives. Fred MacMurray is a surprisingly believable corruptor, living a socially acceptable life, at least on the surface. The laughs are well earned but with that Wilderian aftertaste that makes "The Apartment" a unique piece of film art.

One of the finest examples of smart, satiric comedy-drama ever created for the screen. Jack Lemmon (in amazing comic form) plays a working stiff in Corporate America--via New York City--whose bachelor apartment inadvertently becomes a love-nest for amorous, married executives. The film is extremely modern for 1960 and features a non-stop barrage of funny, clever talk. Lemmon is a mad genius at frenzied (yet sympathetic) characterization, and "The Apartment" catches him at his professional peak in the movies. Working alongside huggable neurotic Shirley MacLaine (also at her peak) and shady Fred MacMurray (parlaying his slimeball role with curt persuasion), Lemmon creates a new kind of acting: screwball realism. **** from ****

Jack Lemmon is the man.

The Apartment really surprised me. The Best Picture winner starts off right in the middle of the action, but yet the first hour seems long and overrun. Too much time seems spent in trying to develop the characters (and oh so many of them) and not enough time is spent on just seeing what will happen. Just when I was about to lose faith, the film picks it up like I have never seen before. The whole sub-plot of the four guys wanting to use Lemmon's apartment for their evening tyrsts is dropped and Wilder smartly concentrates on Lemmon, MacLaine and MacMurray and the film creates true magic.

The Apartment is more of a drama than a comedy and balances the two elements perfectly. Just after one of the more dramatic moments of the film, we see Lemmon straining his pasta with a tennis racquet. The use of the doctor and his wife in supporting roles are completely there for comedy and yet add so much to the film. The ending also rates up there with the best of all time using an old device that doesn't seem at all cliched in this film. Some say that "Some like it hot" was Wilder's best, but now I have to disagree. The Apartment is better and surely would have made my top ten had the first hour not been so predictable.

How Jack Lemmon didn't win Best Actor is beyond me. His is a great performance, getting to act on more than one scale. MacMurray, another Wilder favourite is perfectly cast in the role of a family-wrecker. I wish they would have put a scene in which his wife confronts him with "The News". MacLaine glows on the screen even when she is sick and in bed.

I fully recommend this film to all, it being Wilder's best makes it a must see.

8/10 stars.

Ohhh - after my 4th or 5th viewing, I think this may be one of the most remarkable blends of comedy and drama to have ever been filmed - THE APARTMENT - in subtle ways - rises well above the conventions of any genre. It was my introduction to the great Billy Wilder, and my fondness for Jack Lemmon (a remarkable and sorely missed actor) begins here as well.

*SOME SPOILERS*

The cold take on the sex-and-money ethos to be found in many corporate environments hasn't dated one bit; it could be argued that THE APARTMENT stands a bit ahead of its' time in the depiction of (what would appear to be) educated employees treated like (and feeling like) tools to be used in generation of someone else's income. Lemmon's character never forgets that he's disposable, even if the optimist in him hopes that something better may be found in his superiors. Deep down he knows this to be a pipe dream - the sexual adventurism of those same superiors betrays their utter lack of ethics. Of course, Lemmon's character isn't entirely above it all; he's been more than willing to hire out his own apartment as a place for his colleagues' peccadilloes, in exchange for career advancement, which of course - as Wilder early on links amoral sexual conduct and professional/corporate/financial misconduct in a greater social critique - gets him into trouble.

The dialogue is - as is always true with Wilder - very finely crafted, yet seems natural - this film is a remarkable display of the kind of reactions any of us would offer in similar situations. Interestingly, our two protagonists are also wonderfully imperfect as human beings - Lemmon and MacLaine bear some responsibility for the very serious situations they've gotten themselves into; they manage to realize this ("Be a mensch!" Lemmon's doctor neighbor exclaims) just in time to set things right. MacLaine in particular delivers a remarkable, complex performance - sweet and smart in her earliest scenes, bleak and emotionally ravaged in her climactic scene with MacMurray, naive elsewhere, sharp but hopeful at the end. The cinematography captures the entire cast beautifully - with minimal movement, abundant long takes, and a sleek lack of visual clutter, all of the principals are free to reveal their own best and worst impulses, within an environment that is stripped of artifice. The end result is a film filled with great moments one can easily identify with.

Written by the great filmmaker Billy Wilder, this is a serious, sardonic comedy for people who've known what's its like to feel the pressure of compromising your principles or your self- respect for the sake of getting ahead in life. And there are very few over the age of consent who haven't had to at one time or another. This isn't the laugh out loud comedy of Jim Carrey or the Farrelly brothers, but a subtle, nuanced comedy about two people who have both been jaded in love and yet continue to hope again and again that it will someday work out for them -- mainly because despite the unlikeable things they do, they are both basically decent, nice people. Flawed and even weak at times, but good people. This is a movie that doesn't just make it you laugh, it makes you think. A rare find indeed.