Bittersweet Comedies With Enough Character To Be Successful: The Apartment!

The Good: Funny, Decent acting, Generally decent characters
The Bad: Minutia
The Basics: The Apartment is a rare Best Picture winner for a romantic comedy that deserves its accolades.


I watch so many movies these days that it is almost surprising how long it sometimes takes for me to form an opinion on a movie. In the case of The Apartment, I was surprised by how instantly engaging the movie was and how quickly I came to enjoy it. Generally, I do not tend to enjoy situational comedies, especially when the situation in especially contrived, but in the case of The Apartment, there is so much charm and heart to it that it became instantly disarming and kept my interest. The last time I remember a comedy so thoroughly engaging me was when I first saw When Harry Met Sally.

It is also pretty shocking how for such a cinephile as me, how few films I've seen with Jack Lemmon. Back in junior high, I saw Some Like It Hot and since then, I don't believe I've seen anything he has been in. So having the chance to watch the film legend in his prime in The Apartment was a real treat.

C.C. Baxter is a mid-level executive working at an insurance agency where he flirts with the elevator operator, Fran. He lives a generally banal life, save that he has an apartment in a nice area of New York City that virtually everyone loves. It is convenient for most of the people who work above C.C. and Baxter gets ahead by loaning out his apartment to executives to bring their mistresses to. In fact, C.C.'s knack for pleasing his superiors puts him in the enviable position of getting a promotion as he has done so many favors for his superiors. As he works to become closer with Fran, though, he is drawn into a web of circumstances that leave him beleaguered.

Fran, as it turns out, is the former mistress of J.D. Sheldrake, the man who promotes Baxter and the latest executive to use his apartment. While Fran tries to keep Sheldrake at an arm's length - though he claims to be ready to leave his wife for her - she finds herself meeting with him at Baxter's apartment and as the two come together and fall apart, Baxter begins to discover clues as to who has been using his apartment. When Fran overdoses on his sleeping pills, C.C. is forced to confront his feelings for Fran and figure out what to do about the executives using his apartment.

Perhaps what is most surprising about The Apartment - at least for me as a student of history - is how audacious the film is. In school, we learn about the 1950s and (outside McCarthyism) how pure the social mores of the time were supposed to be. The Apartment, released in 1960 is anything but. Loaded with sexual innuendoes, promiscuous businessmen and loose women (most notably a woman in a bar who is happy to be picked up by Bud because her husband is a prisoner in Cuba), The Apartment features adults behaving badly. In addition to virtually every character being happy to use Baxter, Sheldrake uses Fran and makes her absolutely distraught. The rumors about 1950s social mores seem to be vastly overrated . . . or they truly did abruptly change at the turn of the decade.

In addition, what makes The Apartment so worthwhile is the strength of the characters in the film. The movie is very much a comedy; some of the best moments are screwball moments when Jack Lemmon as Bud acts opposite himself simply dancing with a glove as he tries to figure out what to do with artifacts left in his apartment as he prepares to score with a woman of his own. The film has undeniable comedic elements. But what it has that most comedies today lack are genuine characters and moments that are serious and real.

Take, for example, Fran's suicide attempt. Fran risks her heart for Sheldrake and when her affections are not requited, she tries to kill herself. This is handled in an appropriately serious way, as are Baxter's attempts to save her life. The film turns on a dime from Bud dancing with himself to rushing frantically to wake the right neighbor to save Fran's life. He is passionate and helpful and this follows on scenes where he has clear desire for Fran and tries desperately to get her attention.

It is not all serious, though. The film is disarming with its humor and the humor is not all slapstick or physical comedy, either. This is very much a situational comedy and there is a lot of wordplay and quick reversals. When Baxter is interviewing for his promotion, Sheldrake plays the straightman and Baxter is verbally zany and Lemmon gives one of his best moments of performance opposite a pen (which he unscrews, then tries to write with). And there are pretty classic jokes like "How many drinks have you had?" "Three!" (spoken emphatically by Lemmon as he holds up four fingers).

The reason the characters are so vivid is that the acting is wonderful. Fred MacMurray has a decent supporting role as the lecherous Sheldrake. He helps to establish what has become the archetype in American cinema of the sleazy boss and The Apartment clearly predates sexual harassment (by name, but not by action). Still, MacMurray is completely convincing as the unlikable Sheldrake.

It is Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine that rule "The Apartment." While the DVD box might make this film look like the natural predecessor to Bridget Jones's Diary the film focuses much more on C.C. than Fran, it is the chemistry Lemmon and MacLaine share on camera that makes the movie sparkle. Lemmon is energetic and he is completely convincing when he plays Bud as ill. He is equally passionate as he expresses concern for Fran by confiscating everything she might use to harm herself with. MacLaine is similarly wonderful as Fran. She plays a young woman in love perfectly and even gets a decent laugh with a callback to one of Lemmon's early lines.

But what the two have that makes The Apartment work so well is on-screen chemistry. Lemmon is at his most charming playing opposite MacLaine in the movie. While MacLaine has some great moments where she plays morose and damaged, she is most luminous playing opposite Lemmon. Lemmon delivers his lines best opposite her and when he tells Fran a story as C.C., he is charming. Moreover, MacLaine's reactions to him as a charmed Fran is great and very real.

On DVD, The Apartment features a commentary track which is focused on the director's vision, though it is an American Film Institute expert (the film's producer) Bruce Block. There are two featurettes: one on Jack Lemmon (a tribute to him after he died) and another on the place of The Apartment in film history. These are not exceptional DVD bonus features, but they are about average for this type of film.

But at the end of the day, The Apartment is funny and smart about its humor. The elements that are contrived are not contrived given where the film falls in film history; this helps establish the romantic comedy precepts, as opposed to following in a long tradition. And this is certainly well above what most romantic comedies are.

(FYI, unlike how the DVD box makes the film appear, this is in black and white.)

[As a winner of the Best Picture Oscar, this film is part of W.L.'s Best Picture Project, available here! Please check it out!]

For other situational comedies, please check out my reviews of:
Frasier
Cedar Rapids
Bridesmaides

8/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Realistic, Depressing And Almost A Perfect Film, The Lost Weekend Beats The Viewer And Protagonist!

The Good: Decent character development, Good direction, Excellent acting
The Bad: Cops out at the end, Somewhat dated soundtrack
The Basics: A difficult film, The Lost Weekend realistically characterizes the struggle of a man with alcoholism goes through while trying to quit.


Ironically, for someone who watches as little television as I do, I love great television. I am a sucker for sprawling character arcs and acting which retains a high caliber over an extended amount of time. I like stories that do not rush the story and allow for a sense of realism in the way they unfold and serialized television does that exceptionally well. In fact, I had not realized just how much I appreciated some of the great moments of television in the last twenty years until I sat down and watched The Lost Weekend.

The Lost Weekend is a film, which ended up being the penultimate film for my Best Picture Project and it is a rather direct story of an alcoholic. Having seen many films or television shows featuring characters who were alcoholics, I’ve been aware of how that struggle may be depicted in the film medium. But I don’t think I ever appreciated the magnitude of Andy Sipowicz falling off the wagon in the third season of NYPD Blue until I watched Don Birnam pick up his shot of rye early in The Lost Weekend. The reason is simple: I cared about Sipowicz and when it comes up in The Lost Weekend, it is less surprising, less shocking and has far less of an emotional resonance than it did to watch my beloved television character fall from grace. The difference makes all the difference and The Lost Weekend is realistic and terrifying in its depiction of a drunk writer, but after an hour and a half of crushing the viewer, it lets up in a way that is disappointing. Even so, it’s a pretty remarkable film and one worth watching.

Don Birnam is ten days into recovery, if that, and his brother Wick and him are planning on getting out of New York City for a weekend to visit a farm and relax. When Don’s girlfriend Helen stops by, he uses the opportunity to postpone the trip, sending Wick and Helen off to the theater for a few hours, but not before Wick discovers Don’s last bottle hanging outside the window. Frustrated at the lack of alcohol and money in the apartment, Don is unwittingly rescued from his sobriety by the cleaning lady who has come to clean and get her weekly pay from Wick. Finding the money hidden for her, Don leaves the apartment, buys two bottles of rye and goes to his neighborhood bar to buy some more.

Finding the apartment empty, Wick leaves the City as planned and Helen begins her search for Don. Don, for his part, tries to work on his novel, but gets distracted by the booze. He makes a date with a local working girl, Gloria, and breaks it because of his drinking. And when leaving her apartment, he stumbles and ends up waking up in the drunk tank at the local hospital. Escaping, he looks desperately for his next fix, spiraling down into a drunken depression where he begins to truly realize the incurable nature of his disease.

The Lost Weekend is hardly a pleasant film to watch and it is intended to be difficult, so it succeeds admirably at that. As the film plods along with Don’s long relapse, the only question for the viewer becomes will Helen find him before he does some irreparable harm to himself or others? The Lost Weekend also establishes an interesting baseline for viewers exploring the times and how the U.S. was not always a “blame others before ourselves” litigious nation. To wit, at no point in the film is it even suggested that Nat the friendly local bartender might be culpable in any way for Don’s condition. Instead, Don is treated as an adult and Nat is just a local businessman trying to keep his customer. If the film were made today, Nat would be sued off his butt about halfway through the film, cutting Don off from the liquor.

Outside the soundtrack, which is an intrusive as some of the early Star Trek or Dark Shadows soundtracks for emotional telegraphing, the film actually does manage to be a fairly timeless piece depicting a very real human problem. The Lost Weekend follows Don very closely and as such, the viewer begins to care about him rather early on, despite the excruciating nature of his degeneration on screen. Birnam is, in many ways, a generic character, a writer who is so trapped in his alcoholism that he can no longer write. The film works beautifully to illustrate Helen, Wick and even Nat as enablers, but it never shies away from the idea that Don’s problem is deep within himself and it is something that he is wrestling with (unsuccessfully). The Lost Weekend is smart in illustrating the way the mild-mannered man succumbs to the vice and becomes so obsessed with the next drink that he ransacks his own apartment, hallucinates and even commits other crimes to try to get what he feels he needs.

The reason the film works, though, is because of the acting of lead Ray Milland and the storytelling of writer Charles Brackett and writer-director Billy Wilder. The writers are sure to avoid the clichés while still telling the essential story of an alcoholic and how the disease consumes the life of the alcoholic and the lives of those around him. They do an exceptional job of making the story agonizing without ever seeming over-the-top.

Add to the storytelling, the prime vessel of the story, Ray Milland as Don Birnam. Milland is wonderful in the role, not simply delivering lines, but embodying well a man whose actions he does not appear to be in control of. Don is empathetic because Milland’s eyes, hand motions and even the way he seems to be dragged along by some outside invisible force carries him along makes him seem out of control. The acting in The Lost Weekend from Milland is never over-the-top or hammy, instead, it is well-developed and smart, utilizing the full range of the actor’s vocal and physical performance abilities. It is a rare performance and a truly great one from Milland.

Unfortunately, even the greatness of Milland’s performance does not make this film any more entertaining. The Lost Weekend is a dark character study and one that is intended to be difficult for viewers. It is not intended for easy, light viewing, but works exceptionally well as an educational tool and a character study. As I viewed this on VHS, I’ve no ability to comment on any DVD bonus features, though there were previews for other old films on the VHS. Anyone who likes a strong character drama is likely to find something in The Lost Weekend they will enjoy.

[As a winner of the Best Picture Oscar, this film is part of W.L.'s Best Picture Project, which is available by clicking here! Please check it out!]

For other films focusing on addiction or strong character struggles, please check out my reviews of:
28 Days
Magnolia
Easy A

8.5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page.

© 2011, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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