Review of The Apartment (1960) by Sean L — 29 May 2017

Jack Lemmon plays C.C. Baxter, an over-accommodating insurance grunt, trying his best to climb the corporate ladder by offering favors to his superiors. In this case, those favors include the use of his bachelor pad for extramarital affairs, and Baxter often finds himself literally shut out in the cold while the bigwigs have their fun.

At heart, it's a tale of the meek taking orders from the boastful, allowing themselves to be taken advantage of for fear of a distant, looming consequence. Baxter soaks up this treatment, of course, but so does his longtime crush, the lovely elevator girl Fran (Shirley MacLaine), who's found herself tangled in the complicated web of an office manager.

Both reach personal lows, defeated by the world and pestered by constant external irritations, but see something familiar in each other that gradually nurtures a renewed sense of self-assurance. Hopeful without feeling unrealistic, melancholy but not menacing, draining and also uplifting, it smoothly harvests a large crop of emotions before producing a set of forever-altered characters in the closing shot.

Very well-made, affecting cinema that still feels relevant fifty-plus years later, my only nitpick is that it drags just a bit in getting to the point of the third act.