In New York, Felix, a neurotic news writer who just broke up with his wife, is urged by his chaotic friend Oscar, a sports journalist, to move in with him, but their lifestyles are as different as night and day are, so Felix's ideas about housekeeping soon begin to irritate Oscar.
Un cuplu ciudat, Un drôle de couple, Extraña pareja, Έna parάxeno zeygάri, 2 ess og ingen dame, Parittomat kaverukset, Wat een koppel, Omaka par
The key to Neil Simon's enormous success is to have placed at the center of his comedies the American middle class, with its frustrations, its neuroses and its frailties, through human typologies that anyone could easily identify with. That's why laughing at movies like The Odd Couple is basically a way to laugh at yourself, to exorcise your exasperations and your fears.
The film definitively consecrates Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau as one of the most close-knit and successful comedy duos in Hollywood. Both are simply perfect at capturing the true essence of their respective characters and of a tragicomic story that revolves around two divorced and mismatched friends sharing an apartment. Their coexistence - which forces them to confront…
There always seems to be an undercurrent of despair in any comedy that Jack Lemmon was in.
Although it's very notable and, at some points, to the fore in films like The Apartment and The Out Of Towners to name but two, it's perhaps less noticeable in The Odd Couple - and in a way that's strange.
After all, this film is extremely forward in Lemmon's suicidal tendencies, even going as far to book himself a hotel room to kill himself out of ("Do you have anything....higher?") and sending a suicide telegram. Yet I almost think it gets lost in amongst the events that happen in the second half of The Odd Couple, events which are what the film are…
Am I supposed to relate to both Felix and Oscar equally and simultaneously
That bit where they’re on the double date and everyone’s just laughing uncomfortably was maybe the most relatable thing I have ever seen in a movie
Still and always lovely. Lemmon and Matthau made the world a better place, at least that's what they did with mine. Funny how you can miss people you've never known.
"I told you 158 times I can't stand little notes on my pillow. 'We're all out of cornflakes. F.U.' Took me three hours to figure out F.U. was Felix Ungar."
(not really a) hot take, but the theme song absolutely slaps
“you can’t spend the rest of your life crying, it annoys people at the movies.”
i...i don’t know if i’ve ever related to anyone more than i do to felix. my lil allergy ridden neat freak. i would die for him.
i love these types of comedies so much. where every single character is dumb and unhinged and chaotic. the odd couple is like: walter matthau is GROSS and UNTIDY. jack lemmon is NEAT and CLEAN. and get this? get this.... they become ROOMMATES!!!!! and i absolutely lap it up every time
Few films I've seen in recent years earn the distinction of not having aged well as much as The Odd Couple. Sexism and toxic masculinity aside, this doesn't even have much to say beyond a warning against going down either of the paths its two leads (played the picture of charisma pairing of Jack Lemmon and Walther Matthau) are too content to stay on. All of it feels surprisingly basic and devoid of the charm it seemed to exude when it was first shown over 50 years ago. The film's seemingly coincidental exploration of depression and the reiteration of the need for supporting people who are going through it was an—at first—incongruous but ultimately positive takeaway I had. Between that…
Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau are national treasures. Without those two, this would certainly be a lesser movie. That does not detract from the solid scrip by Neil Simon, the wonderful direction by Gene Saks, or the magnificent music by Neal Hefti.
Essentially a filmed Simon play (Simon was probably the number one playwright of the 60s and 70s), Saks does a wonderful job of blocking and camera set-up to make it more funny and fluid. And I woke up humming the music this morning.
While not overall outstanding, the parts make up a wonderful whole.
