L'Appartement
| The Apartment | |
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| Directed by | Gilles Mimouni |
| Produced by | Georges Benayoun |
| Written by | Gilles Mimouni |
| Starring |
Vincent Cassel Monica Bellucci |
| Music by | Peter Chase |
| Cinematography | Thierry Arbogast |
| Distributed by | Cinemien |
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Release date
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Running time
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116 minutes |
| Country | France |
| Language | French |
| Budget | $4.7 million |
| Box office | $1.1 million |
The Apartment (French: L'Appartement) is a 1996 French film directed by Gilles Mimouni and starring Vincent Cassel, Monica Bellucci and Romane Bohringer.
Max (Vincent Cassel) is a former bohemian and an amateur writer who gets a job in New York and leaves his girlfriend Lisa, with whom he was madly in love, in mysterious circumstances. After two years, he returns home to Paris and decides to settle down and gets engaged to Muriel (Sandrine Kiberlain). By chance, he catches a glimpse of his lost love, Lisa (Monica Bellucci) in a café, but fails to make contact with her before she storms out. Determined to meet her, Max secretly cancels his business trip abroad to pursue his lost love. Through a series of ruses and perseverance, he enters Lisa's apartment. Hearing that somebody else has arrived, he hides in her wardrobe.
First he thinks it is Lisa as the girl who came to the apartment resembles Lisa from behind. After several misunderstandings they finally get acquainted. The girl introduces herself as Lisa. The same night they make love and their relationship starts to develop. The girl's real name is Alice (Romane Bohringer). During the film, flashbacks are intertwined with the narrative to provide a background for Max, Lisa, and especially for Alice, shedding light on the situation.
The flashbacks show that Alice and Lisa were best friends, living in apartments on the same floor of two facing buildings, and that Alice became obsessed with Max, Lisa's then-boyfriend, from a distance. She restyled herself to look like Lisa while secretly engineering a breakup between them. Lisa is a stage actress and leaves abruptly for a two-month tour, giving Alice a letter to deliver to Max asking him to wait for her; Alice never sends the letter. Max, believing Lisa left because she didn't love him, accepts a job in New York and leaves. Upon her return, Lisa is heartbroken that Max has left her and leaves on a cruise (a gift from Alice) to ease her mind, where she meets a rich, married older man named Daniel.
Lisa is being pursued by Daniel, who might have murdered his wife to get closer to her. For this reason, she avoids her flat and lets Alice use it. To complicate matters further, Alice is dating Max's best friend, Lucien, who is also Max's confidante.
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