The Apartment Is Wilder's Arguable Magnum Opus and a Melancholy Christmas Classic
By the time Billy Wilder made The Apartment in 1960, he had worked in Hollywood for 25 years; BFI calls it arguably his magnum opus. The film is a romantic comedy anchored in the grim 9-to-5 of C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) and his one source of joy, the woman who works his office elevator (Shirley MacLaine).
Baxter has forsaken his values for success, desperate to please his corporate superiors. The mass appeal of this Christmas classic pleased Wilder, but BFI argues that appeal belies the film's complexity and melancholy.
AI-generated discussion · Different perspectives
The melancholy is not a decorative mood; it is the cost of Baxter's bargain. He has forsaken his values for success, which makes the film's charm feel like part of the trap.
That may be too moralistic. Wilder believed the audience was never wrong, and the film's mass appeal pleased him; the melancholy can sit inside a popular Christmas package without turning the audience into accomplices.