THE APARTMENT AND SHIRLEY MACLAINE AS FRAN KUBELIK

Today, I have watched The Apartment again. I saw that Billy Wilder film for the first time early this year, and I can't seem to get over it. I love the story, i love the music, but there's one thing that I particularly adore in that film: Shirley MacLaine.

I first saw Shirley in Guarding Tess alongside Nicolas Cage. In that film, she played a character that I dreaded, a sarcastic, even pedantic first lady. For years I didn't give a damn about her. That was until I saw her as Fran Kubelik in The Apartment.

Fran Kubelik is adorable. Period. Quite possibly the most fragile, tender thing that cinema has ever seen. There's a gentle quality to her in this film, a sweet one. Maybe even a bittersweet one, even when she's unconscious she's adorable. She's full of contradictions, fragile ones. She seems overly optimistic, but deep down there is great pain. Paraphrasing one of her lines, there is a talent for falling in love at the wrong time and place. Even though she says it humorously, it is obvious that therein lies a longing, bound to be desperation. And that makes her even more fascinating. There is a mystery and a continuing depth to this simple and apparently innocent elevator girl. Something about her just feels right, even though emotionally, she's one big mess. But then again she feels so right that the viewer can't help being attracted to her problems and trying to help her solve them. In my opinion, even though Jack Lemmon is the protagonist, the heart of the film is purely and solely Shirley MacLaine as Fran Kubelik. Paraphrasing something written by Vinícius De Moraes, without her the film would be a clock that has only the minutes hand, and she is the hour, providing time with a feeling of sense and direction. But perhaps there is one line that says it all as to Kubelik: "You hear what I said, Miss Kubelik? I absolutely adore you."

Copyright 2011 Emilio Sánchez Enterprises Inc.