One Paragraph Movie Review: The Apartment

Nineteenth film: The Apartment, a movie sitting right across three genres like a slutty contortionist. To me the very presence of Jack Lemmon implies slapstick, so juxtaposed as he is in this film with attempted suicide and corporate moral decay, it takes a bit of getting used to. With a plot based on a corporate slave gunning for promotion by making his apartment available to executives as a sex den, it’s a subtly brazen film for a time when there was still such a thing as an elevator girl, although Shirley MacLaine as an elevator girl takes some believing. I left it feeling icky (due to the blokes gleefully cheating on their wives) but entertained (due to the writing and performances), and I want to bring back cocktail hour but keep my contemporary kitchen. Also I now know that an option for my spare room is renting it out to cowards who need somewhere to bang. Greeeaaat. Three off-screen life-saving vomits out of five.