Director: Gene Saks
Cast: Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau
Genre: Comedy 1967
Running time: 105 mins.
Rating:★★★★
Two divorced-veteran funnymen, deciding to share a New York apartment, work together with precision timing of a vaudeville team, but always with brilliantly spontaneity. Lemmon plays fussy Felix, fastidious to a fault. He proves that cleanliness is next to insanity. Matthau is Oscar, who wreaks havoc on tidy room with the speed and thoroughness of a tornado.
Though the saying, "Opposites attract," usually thought of as a romantic reference, but when it's a platonic relationship between two guys or "buddies," it's comedic genius. We're introduced to our first character, Felix ( Jack Lemmon) is extremely miserable, with a bit of a flare for being over dramatic, and goes to a hotel in hopes to commit suicide. One can only assume that it is over his wife from the photos he takes out of his wallet and the wedding band that he takes off right before he is about to go through with the action. When the window fails to open, Felix goes to a strip club in hopes to cheer himself up. Oscar is introduced to the stage with a poker game with some buddies. The arraignment of Oscar's pigsty apartment is enough to make anyone's skin crawl in vommit. However, Walter Matthau portrays Oscar with such an asinine, carefree, and anger that it is fucking brilliant and captivating. One is left with two reactions, sometimes simultaneously; a desire to punch him and the desire to have that kind of balls to pull off the things that he does.
How they don't kill each other is beyond anyone. The one pushes the other's buttons, while being totally oblivious that he's doing it. It's freakin' fantastic!!! Felix is the "wife" and Oscar is the "husband." The comedy is witty, dynamic, and they have perfect timing in delivering the lines. But they are just what the other needs to deal with their issues.
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