220. The Apartment (1960)
When you're in love with a married man, you shouldn't wear mascara.
Title: The Apartment
Date Watched: 5/16/2013
Original Ranking Out of 10: 10
Revised Ranking Out of 10: 9+
Synopsis: In order to move up in his company, a bachelor lets his superiors at work use his apartment to romance young women.
The Good: Funny and touching, sometimes both at once. Makes bold choices and sticks with them. Fantastic dialogue.
The Bad: I'm pretty sure there's nothing bad about The Apartment.
Why Do I Own This Movie?: Amazon. I've been on another spending spree. Sigh.
Should I Still Own This Movie?: Absolutely.
What Did I Notice That I Didn't Notice Before?: Jack Lemmon's reading a Playboy in one scene. Also, there's a wonderful double entendre before he opens the door for Shirley McClaine's brother-in-law: "I don't want to take advantage of you the way I did yesterday in bed."
Other Impressions: This is really a superb movie. And it's not just superb as a whole -- it's fractally wonderful. Once the movie's over, you know it's good, but every scene in it is also fantastic. And the scenes are all composed of memorable moments. And that's pretty rare, especially for a talky movie about suicide, heartbreak, and adultery.
Of course, the movie doesn't really start out being specifically about any of those things. It begins by focusing on a man who constantly finds himself doing favors that he doesn't want to do for other people, in the hope that he'll advance in his company. And he's not shortchanged -- he gets what he wants. But sometimes what we want isn't actually what you want. The journey towards the goal is so often more memorable than what you were aiming for in the first place
However, about halfway through the movie, that storyline gets completely derailed and becomes about suicide. In a lesser movie, this would be a distraction. Here, Billy Wilder bravely jumps in with both feet forward and tackles things head on. And it's to his credit that the movie remains very funny, even when the material is very dark. Ultimately, it does return to the story of the man and his apartment, but the transitions are so seamless, that it all feels like one complete package, instead of the cinematic equivalent of Neapolitan Ice Cream.
Billy Wilder made other good movies after The Apartment. He made Avanti!, for instance, and I also have soft spots for Kiss Me, Stupid and One, Two, Three, but nothing else came close to the one-two punch of Some Like It Hot and The Apartment. With these two movies, Wilder doesn't just balance drama and comedy, he crams as much of both as he can into two hours and creates an experience that is entertaining, touching, and personal. There are some movies that are great and others that you just love: The Apartment is both.
The List
Title: The Apartment
Date Watched: 5/16/2013
Original Ranking Out of 10: 10
Revised Ranking Out of 10: 9+
Synopsis: In order to move up in his company, a bachelor lets his superiors at work use his apartment to romance young women.
The Good: Funny and touching, sometimes both at once. Makes bold choices and sticks with them. Fantastic dialogue.
The Bad: I'm pretty sure there's nothing bad about The Apartment.
Why Do I Own This Movie?: Amazon. I've been on another spending spree. Sigh.
Should I Still Own This Movie?: Absolutely.
What Did I Notice That I Didn't Notice Before?: Jack Lemmon's reading a Playboy in one scene. Also, there's a wonderful double entendre before he opens the door for Shirley McClaine's brother-in-law: "I don't want to take advantage of you the way I did yesterday in bed."
Other Impressions: This is really a superb movie. And it's not just superb as a whole -- it's fractally wonderful. Once the movie's over, you know it's good, but every scene in it is also fantastic. And the scenes are all composed of memorable moments. And that's pretty rare, especially for a talky movie about suicide, heartbreak, and adultery.
Of course, the movie doesn't really start out being specifically about any of those things. It begins by focusing on a man who constantly finds himself doing favors that he doesn't want to do for other people, in the hope that he'll advance in his company. And he's not shortchanged -- he gets what he wants. But sometimes what we want isn't actually what you want. The journey towards the goal is so often more memorable than what you were aiming for in the first place
However, about halfway through the movie, that storyline gets completely derailed and becomes about suicide. In a lesser movie, this would be a distraction. Here, Billy Wilder bravely jumps in with both feet forward and tackles things head on. And it's to his credit that the movie remains very funny, even when the material is very dark. Ultimately, it does return to the story of the man and his apartment, but the transitions are so seamless, that it all feels like one complete package, instead of the cinematic equivalent of Neapolitan Ice Cream.
Billy Wilder made other good movies after The Apartment. He made Avanti!, for instance, and I also have soft spots for Kiss Me, Stupid and One, Two, Three, but nothing else came close to the one-two punch of Some Like It Hot and The Apartment. With these two movies, Wilder doesn't just balance drama and comedy, he crams as much of both as he can into two hours and creates an experience that is entertaining, touching, and personal. There are some movies that are great and others that you just love: The Apartment is both.
The List