The Apartment *****

Director: Billy Wilder

Year: 1960

Writers: Billy Wilder, I.A.L. Diamond

Cinematographer: Joseph LaShelle

Excellent, excellent, excellent! An absolute joy to watch! This film just shot up to my top 20 films of all-time, maybe even my top-5.

Billy Wilder blends serious drama with perfectly handled comedy, glorious black and white photography by Joseph LaShelle, and superb acting by Jack Lemmon and Shirley McLaine.

What a pleasure to find a film that takes unexpected turns, develops characters a bit unexpectedly. I didn't want this movie to end, I could stay with these characters another hour. I can't wait to see it again, it has now moved to the number 1 spot on my list of must purchase DVDs.

Wilder weaves characters, plot lines, and even dialogue and incidental details all so intricately, tightly, neatly that every second of this film is actually significant to the story. That kind of tight story-telling is something that you lack in much of current cinema, maybe only the Coen Brothers are close to this kind of perfect filmmaking.

I love the moment when Lemmon's character hides the razors in his bathroom from McClaine's suicidal character, and then later lathers up for a shave, enters into an important dramatic scene with his face still covered in shaving cream, and the denouement of the scene comes when he re-enters the bathroom to shave and realizes the razors are still in his pocket.

Little things like that, and when Lemmon and later McClaine as well say "three" but hold up 4 fingers, make this film extra-enjoyable. I love the subtler kinds of comedy here, and just the natural comedy that arises from the situations, though not laugh-out-loud moments, you enjoy the complication of life experienced by Lemmon because it is realistic not in a literal way, like Mike Leigh's "Vera Drake", but realistic emotionally. It feels right, like it could happen, and that's what matters.

I love realism, but when you give me this kind of emotional realism while giving me comedy and a well-organized story all at the same time, you're really giving me a movie that I'll want to revisit over and over again.

This is why I love movies.