I've been re-watching The Apartment, and if it wasn't such a funny movie (along with the sad and romantic parts), I'm telling you, this'd be right up there in the most romantic movie evah rankings. But more about that later. First I'm going to make a couple sociological points.
I found the whole construct of how attempted suicide was looked at/handled in 1960 as opposed to 2009 fascinating. CC Baxter begs his neighbor the doctor not to report Miss Kubelick's attempt, and the doctor "as a friend" relents, but warns that "they usually try it again." Yeah, today we know that when someone makes an attempt or even a gesture or a threat, that they need therapy, probably medication, and very possibly inpatient observation until it's clear they aren't gonna try again. Whereas in 1960, even though apparently medical professionals at the least were aware of that, the risk of getting in trouble, losing your job, being shamed and socially shunned outweighed that. So instead of getting the person actual help, it was "well, okay, we won't put her through *that* but watch her carefully..."
I was also struck on the re-watch, which I hadn't really thought of before, that it was such a crappy crappy thing to do to try to kill yourself in someone else's house. I mean, she didn't know it was Mr Baxter's apartment--it's conceivable that she didn't actually know for sure if *anyone* lived there full time--and she was distraught enough by the realization that the man she loved more or less thought of her as a whore to throw down a half a bottle of sleeping pills, so, y'know, not thinking clearly, but still. Killing yourself in someone else's home=not very nice. (I suppose I should stop here to also register a little disbelief that she didn't know it was Mr Baxter's apartment--in their homes, people usually have junk mail or magazines lying around with their names on them, perhaps a photo or two of themselves, etc, and the movie doesn't make the point that he purposely hid his personal effects when other people were using the apartment. But maybe we're supposed to just assume that? Was there a whole 1960 code of etiquette around such arrangements that I'm woefully unaware of?)
Oh, the other sociological point that killed me! When Mr Baxter asks her out to the theatre and lets on that he already knows where she lives, who she lives with, "her height, weight, and social security number" and what vaccinations and surgeries she's had--because he looked up her medical insurance info at work--we're supposed to find that charming and endearing. From our perspective, of course, it's "ewwww, creepy stalker guy!" at the worst and "oh, that's deeply inappropriate" at the best. Though, I dunno, I hear people still look up deeply personal stuff about people they're thinking of dating on the internet before they do, so maybe this is just *my* boundary, and not y'all's.
Okay! So why's this such a lovely romance? It fits most of my criteria.
Love hurts! Miss Kubelick is suicidal over the dastardly Fred MacMurray, while Mr Baxter, on finding out that Miss Kubelick is MacMurray's phantom mistress, is so distraught, he's getting hammered on Christmas Eve and *almost* randomly sleeping with the jockey's wife (which, yeah, is comedy gold too--"He's 5'2 and 99 lbs. He's like a little Chihuahua!")
Love grows over time! They're "work friends" for ages before they get together, and while he's crushing over her being pretty and bubbly and sassy and friendly, he also likes her. He defends her to the assholes who are all, ooo, what's wrong with her, why doesn't she let anyone get into her pants? with "well, maybe she's just a nice, decent girl!" And even though she's in love with the bad guy, she likes him, too. She notices he's the only one who takes his hat off in her elevator. She implies he's one of the few who isn't rude or skanky to her. There's a basis for them later falling in love.
Devotional quality! This is shown perhaps most clearly by Mr Baxter calling up Fred MacMurray on Christmas Day after Miss Kubelick's suicide attempt and giving *him* the chance to do the right thing...which, of course, he doesn't. Even though Baxter is falling in love with her by then, he knows she loves the other guy, and he's trying to do what he thinks will make *her* the most happy, even though he's screwing himself by possibly getting them back together.
Forgiveness! Mr Baxter, besides not caring that she's tried to kill herself in his bed, also is not judgmental that she's been doing the married guy. He forgives her lapse of judgment and doesn't for a second hold it against her.
Finally, sacrifice! It could be said he throws away his whole bright professional future for her, but--and this is why this not really a "romance" movie per se--the real point of the movie is that falling in love with her is what wakes him up and makes him start behaving like the good person he really is inside, and what makes him realize he's letting himself be crapped on just to get ahead and that isn't the life he wants. The point of the movie is his self-growth (and the satire, of course, about the corporate world that he has to grow against); his love for Miss Kubelick is just the impetus for his change. So, yeah! Not the most romantic movie evah. The search continues. But such a good movie.
xoxo
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