Jack Lemmon: The Prisoner of Second Avenue March 30, 2008
Posted by ghostof82 in : Film General , trackbackThis is a wonderful film, I first saw it by chance back in the late ‘eighties when it turned up on afternoon television. I was unemployed at the time, at a low point in my life, and I instantly made a connection with Jack Lemmon’s remarkable portrayal as Mel Edison, a New York executive who is made redundant and slowly sinks into depression and mental breakdown.
It sounds like a depressing movie, right? Well, actually it’s a comedy, one of the greats, one of those comedies that can make you laugh one minute and cry the next- sometimes in the very same scene. Written by Neil Simon and based on his own play, the script is witty and sharp, full of one-liners and wonderful observation, almost as much a drama as it is a comedy. And New York in the ’seventies looks just beautiful. It’s a New York that is lost now. It’s a pre-9/11 New York, and it looks and feels like another world.
Jack Lemmon shines in one of his best screen performances. He is funny, scary, weak, charming, brave… “I still have value, I still have worth!” despairs Lemmon, frustrated by being dumped on the scrapheap. You feel his pain and root for his salvation, while the film kicks him again and again. Lemmon is just perfect, and makes it seem so effortless. There is a truth to his performance, no melodramatics, no straining for laughs. This one of those films, one of those characters, in which you just know watching it that no other actor on the planet could do better.
Anne Bancroft is simply a revelation as his suffering wife, deeply in love with her husband but increasingly worried as he slides towards his mental breakdown. It’s an endearing performance, and I think this is one of her best movies- indeed, she was actually nominated for a BAFTA Best Actress award for it, so someone noticed back then..
And the genius of the film is the ending, it isn’t perfect- by which I mean there isn’t a complete absolution for our hero and his wife. They have each other, and are laughing at the insanity of the world, of what is happening to them, but Mel still hasn’t got a job, and his wife has just lost hers. But having each other, and the strength of each other, is enough. It’s all they need. We know that somehow they’ll get through it, that they will win. A modern version would be more literal, it would have them win the lottery or Mel finding a better job than he had lost, but back in the ’seventies films had better endings.
The ’seventies was a great decade for films and great acting roles, but this film was a surprising failure back when it was released in 1975, and Jack Lemmon’s performance here is overlooked by many when they look back at the mans great career. Indeed I may be in a minority in my love for the film- it seems forgotten now, available only on a fairly bare-bones R1 DVD. Some might say it is famous more for its cameos -Sly Stallone, F.Murray Abraham and M. Emmet Walsh- than anything else. That’s a great pity, because I think the film is as timely and resonant as it ever was.
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As a fan of both Simon and Lemmon, this review made me embarassed that I hadn’t seen ‘The Prisoner of Second Avenue’. I will now do so - thank you!