Creepy and sinister, wild and weird, and, oddly enough, occasionally more conservative in its development than you might expect, "Apartment Zero" aspires to be many things, and manages to achieve a few of them. But not quite enough.
A talked-about film at the Sundance United States Film Festival a couple of years ago, "Apartment Zero" is a Hitchcockian thriller with satirical overtones and homoerotic undertones. The film in the Hitchcock canon it most resembles is "Strangers On a Train," with more modern elements, of course.
The story, set in present-day Buenos Aires, has Colin Firth as a wimpy movie buff who operates a theater specializing in Hollywood golden oldies. Firth is such a buff that he cringes and makes condescending remarks toward those who are not versed in arcane film trivia.
Meanwhile, he lives in an oversize and too-expensive apartment since his dying mother has had to be institutionalized.
Eventually, reluctantly, Firth takes in a roommate, the charismatic, dark and somewhat sinister Hart Bochner, who casts a spell over everyone in the apartment complex — and especially over Firth.
There is a lot of "Odd Couple" game-playing in the film's first half, as Firth tries to figure out who Bochner is and what sinister secrets he is hiding; then the second half turns into an even darker satire with a few surprises.
On the surface, this is pretty intriguing stuff, a psychological thriller with elements of everything from "The Third Man" to "The Tenant" to Hitch's "The Trouble With Harry."
But the film is so leisurely paced and low-key, and perhaps a bit too vague when it's trying to be enigmatic, that it becomes boring.
The script is loaded with unlikely plot turns, which producer/direc-tor/co-writer Martin Donovan tries to make unnoticeable through lush trappings, clever dialogue and the excellent performances of the actors. But in the end, even as the film takes deliberate pokes at Hollywood and the nether world of film fantasy, "Apartment Zero" itself is merely another attempt to re-create the atmosphere and mood of other, better movies.
"Apartment Zero" is rated R for violence, sex, nudity and profanity.