Wilder Untamed

Rating: 9/10 (3 June 2012)

In 1960 Billy Wilder wrote and directed The Apartment, a film that started off as satiric comedy, switched halfway through to drama yet finished happily. Imagine if Shirley MacLaine's suicide attempt had succeeded what kind of film The Apartment would have been; answer, something akin to Roberto Begnini's Life Is Beautiful, a film that starts off as a romantic comedy, segues to drama roughly half way, does have one tragic consequence yet ends happily when a mother and child are reunited. Even whilst watching some of the situations are improbable in the extreme - to take just one, the scene where the son wants to go home and the father says okay, let's go, we'll lose the tank but what the hey. He actually opens the door of the barracks and motions the boy to come forward whereas in reality the door would have been locked and guarded. This is the sort of thing you need to accept if you are to embrace this fine movie and you should embrace it, you really should.