104 - The Apartment

    C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) works at an insurance company, where several superiors are all using his apartment as a rendezvous location with their assorted mistresses.  Baxter is interested in an elevator operator, and it turns out that she is having an affair with the big boss, who also starts using the apartment for their meet ups.
    This is directed by Billy Wilder, who also made Some Like It Hot.  There are a lot of similarities.  The direction is solid.  The performances are broadly comedic, and very satisfying.  The writing is incredibly similar.
    But this is a darker movie.  The plot revolves around infidelity, and regardless of how well they turn it toward comedy, it still has an undertone of cruelty.  The script  reflects these cruelties really well.  Nearly every instance of the boss talking to the elevator girl is perfect in how casually he mistreats her.  It never comes across as him being aware that he's a jerk, just that he naturally is, and doesn't understand how to be a decent person.
    I was also thrilled with how well the script was put together.  There are many instances of setting things up that played so naturally that it didn't feel that way.  When Baxter returns a ladies mirror to his boss, it doesn't feel like it sets anything up.  Then when he sees the elevator girl with the mirror later, it pays off.  The difference is only that it was handled so well that I didn't see it coming.  Same thing with a story about an attempted suicide with a gun, paying off in a joke involving popping a bottle of champagne.  The steps - telling the story, having the champagne left at his apartment - neither felt like they were trying to set things up.  When it pays off, it feels completely natural.
    I liked it quite a bit.  But I need to think about it for awhile before I know how much I like it.