Entertainment :: Movies
Apartment Zero by Phil Hall
EDGE ContributorTuesday Feb 20, 2007 Martin Donovan’s psychosexual thriller Apartment Zero represents a victory of style over substance, with crisp direction and a pair of remarkable performances carefully obscuring a very shaky screenplay.
Set in Buenos Aires, the eponymous residence belongs to Adrian LeDuc (Colin Firth), the owner of a failing art house cinema. Adrian is an Argentine who prefers to let people think he is British (he lived his teen years in London, hence his impeccable BBC-worthy voice), but he would prefer not to be close to people. The one person he is close to is his elderly hospitalized mother, who already lost her mind and is slowly losing her grasp on life.
Hard up for cash, Adrian reluctantly advertises for a roommate in his large apartment. Much to his delight, a respondent arrives in the hunky body of Jack Carney (Hart Bochner). The American Jack is everything Adrian is not - extroverted, comfortable with his sexuality (he likes the boys and the girls) and eager to be friendly with the neighbors in Adrian’s apartment building. Adrian, who is repressed to the point of wearing a suit and tie even during his leisure hours, is uncertain on how to express his glee in having Jack in the apartment. His willingness to do Jack’s laundry and prepare his breakfast suggests there could be a beautiful relationship - if only Adrian was willing to open up his feelings.
However, Jack isn’t quite ready to open up a few secrets of his own. And at this point, "Apartment Zero" nearly derails the film erupts with a weird subplot regarding a serial killer with links to Argentina’s 1970s-era policy of torturing its dissidents. There is absolutely no secret who the serial killer is, and the fact it takes Adrian so long to piece two and two suggests a level of stupidity that is too harsh to accept. At many points, the film requires more than the proverbial grain of salt to accept the outlandish plot turns.
Yet Apartment Zero remains compelling as long as Donovan keeps the focus on the emotional pas de deux between Adrian and Jack. Adrian’s angst at his mother’s failing mind and health is utterly crushing, and Firth’s performance as a devoted son facing the prospect of isolation without the support of the one person he dearly loves offers a startling depth to the character. When Adrian fears Jack will leave him, his angst is not one of self-pity or deluded obsession, but one of rue that he will lose another person who showed him any degree of strings-free sincerity.
Matching Firth as an equal is Bochner’s Jack. With soap opera star good looks and the ability to read people’s insecurities, Jack is both a bisexual predator and a warped angel of mercy. As he moves from apartment to apartment by providing attention to the emotionally and sexually starved neighbors in the apartment complex (including a repressed homosexual, an inept transvestite, a lonely housewife, and a pair of dotty old ladies played with too much relish by British comic actresses Dora Bryan and Liz Smith), Jack is too good to be true. And when he involves Adrian in his less-than-savory activities, he also takes too much pleasure in unleashing his roommate’s inner beast. It is a fascinating and richly nuanced performance, and it makes the viewer wonder why Bochner never quite hit the A-list after what should have been a star-making performance.
Donovan also fills the film with unexpected flashes of subversive wit (most notably the opening scene, where Adrian’s screening of Touch of Evil reveals a decidedly non-packed house) and Hitchcockian suspense (especially when Adrian unsuccessfully tries to tail Jack through the crowded downtown streets). Remarkably, Donovan never shows Jack in full sexual action - the hints of carnal adventure to come are actually more satisfying than showing the inevitable actions. That is a brave risk, and Apartment Zero scores by leveraging suggestiveness in lieu of coarse depictions.
Apartment Zero is flawed, but it is nonetheless entertaining and frequently moving in its dissection of how people prey on each other’s frailties.
Commentaries by director Martin Donovan, writer/producer David Koepp and guest observer Steven Soderbergh.
Phil Hall’s latest book is "The History of Independent Cinema" (published by BearManor Media)
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