Review of The Apartment (1960) by Brent V — 24 Oct 2009

When one watches a film such as The Apartment, one cannot help but to be overwhelmed by a simple thought; They dont make them like this any more. Wait, actually they do, or at least they try to, in the form of the annually released romantic comedy that wreaks of unoriginal tricks and failed attempts to make us feel something for the characters.

The Apartment stars a young Jack Lemmon, (who viewers may be more familiar with the films that he starred in with Walter Matthau), and an even younger Shirley MacLaine. Lemmon plays an insecure man named C.C. Baxter, who is trying desperately to climb the corporate ladder at his sales company and is willing to give his home to do so. Baxter loans out his apartment to several company managers many nights a week for their parties and lost weekends, in exchange for their promise that the employees will give him good reports to Mr. Sheldrake(Fred MacMurray). Eventually Baxter works up the courage to ask out the elevator operator, Ms. Kubelik, whom he has been admiring for years. This causes problems in the selfish company for reasons you must watch for yourself, because they are very funny and dealt with tender humor and delicacy. What makes the comedy intricate however, is that there are usually moments of genuine sadness during or in-between the comical events, giving each scene much more weight.

The characters are always engrossing in every scene; Baxter drains his spaghetti with a tennis racket and never lets his sadness show towards others despite what the viewer knows is going on in his head, and Ms. Kubelick carries a sarcastic and assertive attitude towards both the mild mannered Baxter and his greedy managers. These two characters are the highlights of the film, the two who make every scene they appear in shine, and every scene in which they interact with each other shine even brighter with original, witty dialog and funny, yet tender moments between Baxter and Kubelik.

Many films created today tirelessly try to spin the same formula that The Apartment created decades ago, trying to update the material or rewriting the character's personalities to make them more "interesting". The Apartment may outdated, like the fact that modern society does not use elevator operators anymore, or what used to be considered cute scenes that in today's world could pass for being slightly creepy (there is a scene where Baxter tells Ms. Kubelick he knows her personal information from her file, such as where she lives and her exact height and weight). Yet claiming that the film is "outdated" could be argued, as the film probably works partially because of the time period in which the film takes place. As it stands, The Apartment is an example of classic film making, in which the film relies more on dialog, acting, and story and less on overused plot devices and special effects without a soul.