Hi everyone,
Continuing my trend of watching some classic movies, I recently watched 1960's "The Apartment", and boy howdy did I not get what I was expecting.
What I expected: a sweet, light romantic comedy involving a young woman choosing between two potential partners. I mean, just look at that movie poster! Why would I expect anything else?
To offer a concise way of stating exactly how wrong I got this movie, before we proceed any farther this post warrants a gigantic content warning (CW) for suicide, relevant safety and support resources for which can be found here.
SO. What the hell is going on with this movie??
Let me tell you. (Oodles and oodles of spoilers ahoy.)
Basically, this film is an allegory of the horrors of corporate capitalism for the average non-C-suite worker. We meet CC "Bud" Baxter, played by Jack Lemmon, working overtime as a cog in the Big Business machine from his tiny post in the corporate version of a sweatshop floor, packed like a sad sardine in with countless other workers banging away at their typewriters without even the dubious dignity of a cubicle.
At first glance we might assume he's just a conventional over-achiever with misplaced loyalty for his corporate overlords, but we quickly learn that he's gone way beyond that: he works overtime not only because he's jockeying for a promotion, but also because he's been strong-armed into loaning his apartment to his higher-ups so they can use it to shack up for the evening with their mistresses, and so most nights he has nowhere to go but the office.
Bud returns home one evening to discover he still has to wait out in the cold for one particular couple to wrap up their good time, only to have to clean up after them and take drink and snack requests from some higher-up because they've eaten and drunk everything in sight. On another evening, when the interlopers unexpectedly take over his apartment, Bud is forced to spend several weary late-night hours outside, then comes into work the next day with a nasty cold. As if all that weren't miserable enough, he has to weather the judgment of his neighbors, who overhear his bosses partying it up in Bud's apartment and think he's the biggest womanizer in town.
The one bright spot in Bud's bleak life is his fleeting exchanges with Shirley MacLaine's Frank Kubelik, a plucky and pretty elevator worker who appears to skillfully swat away the advances of the sexually harassing bosses that clearly view the female workforce as their hunting grounds. Unsurprisingly, Bud's self-esteem is so eroded by his work that he doesn't seem to dream that Fran would actually be interested in him. However, when he is finally assured of a long-sought-after promotion from Jeff Sheldrake (played by Fred MacMurray), the business's personnel director, he finally gets up the courage to ask Fran on a date, and she accepts the invitation...
...Only to stand him up because she's wheedled into a date with that very same Mr. Sheldrake, who is trying to convince Fran to restart their previous relationship by promising to divorce his wife (because of course in addition to exploiting the imbalance of power between him and Fran to coerce her into a romantic relationship, Sheldrake is also married).
As if this all weren't bleak enough, Sheldrake begins repeatedly taking Fran back to Bud's apartment, and Bud has no idea.
To drive things to an even darker place, at the company's Christmas party, Sheldrake's secretary tells Fran that she was also previously in a relationship with Sheldrake and he had also promised her that he would leave his wife. In fact, Fran learns that she is simply the latest in a long string of women employees at the company that Sheldrake has pulled this manipulative maneuver on.
Later that evening, again back at Bud's apartment, Fran confronts Sheldrake with this new information. While he claims to love her and that his intentions to leave his life are sincere, he also gives her money as he leaves for the evening in what lands as a patronizing and objectifying attempt to buy her continued affection. Feeling utterly humiliated and emotionally decimated, Fran attempts to take her own life while still in Bud's apartment.
Bud later returns home and discovers her and immediately springs into action, saving her life with the help of his doctor nextdoor neighbor. and nursing her back to health in his apartment for a few days. While Fran and Bud get to know each other more deeply during this time, Bud discloses that he has also contemplated suicide and has even secured the means to complete the act.
It cannot be overstated what a central role the act of suicide plays in this film. It is a looming threat, the darkest of dark clouds cast over the tensions and interpersonal interplays of the movie. Instead of glazing over the acts required to revive Fran, the movie spends agonizing moments detailing the measures Bud and his neighbor, Dr. Dreyfuss (played by Jack Kruschen), take to save her. These measures, informed by Dr. Dreyfuss's urgent yet disturbingly quotidian practicality, are shockingly graphic, simply because they feel so real.
Even once Fran is out of immediate danger, its presence is still immediate. Remembering Dr. Dreyfuss's guidance informed by his previous work with people who have attempted suicide, Bud is struck by moments of panic when he realizes that objects that could be used in further acts of self-harm are available in his apartment, which he then frantically confiscates to protect Fran. He attempts to keep her attention diverted from her broken heart through card games and spaghetti dinners charmingly strained with a tennis racket, hoping to keep her alive by distracting her long enough that she can regain her strength and wish for life. He is sweet and attentive yet always appropriate, doting on Fran in a platonic way despite harboring romantic affections for her.
Later, Fran's brother-in-law comes to retrieve her from Bud's apartment, and the two part ways. Sheldrake discovers his secretary told Fran about his history with other women employees and fires her. He then has the utterly sociopathic audacity to request access to Bud's apartment so he can meet up with Fran there again. When Bud refuses, understanding that Sheldrake has threatened his job if he doesn't comply with Sheldrake's demand, he quits his job, knowing that to continue to enable Sheldrake to get access to Fran is to endanger her life when she is already extremely fragile. Having lost his job and, it seems, any chance of love with Fran, Bud returns to his apartment to pack it up and leave.
As if we haven't been through enough horror and heartache on behalf of these characters, the film delivers one last bolt of terror. Fran realizes she loves Bud when she learns that he quit and rushes to his apartment. When she arrives, she thinks she discovers evidence that he has died by suicide. Instantly fearing the worst, she pounds on his door, only to discover that he is alive and ready to sit down for another game of cards. It is the saddest, most adrenalized, and most heart-rending "happy ending" I've seen in a long time: two people whose lives have been completely demolished by the voracious appetites of their job, grasping at the fleeting distraction of a card game.
All of this suffering, this cost paid in human life and pain, can be laid at the doorstep of corporate America. It relentlessly and mercilessly chews up Bud, Fran, and their colleagues and spits them out, stripping away every inch of not only their labor from 9 am until 5 pm, but also their personal lives, space, wholeness, and dignity at all hours of the day and night.
I can't say I enjoyed this movie. It is too heart-rending and brutal for enjoyment. It's not viewing I would remotely recommend for anyone hoping for the light romcom romp I thought I was getting, and even less so for anyone in an emotionally vulnerable state. That acknowledged, it is an excellent film for what it actually is: an honest and bracingly clear-eyed indictment of the violence and abuse wrought by unchecked corporate power over workers.
I therefore gave "The Apartment" a 4.
{Heart}
PS: Again, for anyone needing support or resources to keep themselves or a loved one safe, please call 988 or visit 988lifeline.org.
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