The Odd Couple

Directed by Gene Saks, The Odd Couple follows Jack Lemmon’s fastidious Felix Ungar as he moves in with Walter Matthau’s sloppy Oscar Madison after splitting from his wife. (Conflict naturally ensues.) Filmmaker Saks, working from a script by Neil Simon, delivers a deliberately-paced and often unabashedly stagy comedy that benefits substantially from the justifiably iconic work of its stars, as Matthau and Lemmon transform what could’ve been one-note characters into persistently captivating (and impressively layered) protagonists and it’s clear, as well, that the palpable chemistry between Felix and Oscar plays an instrumental role in cementing the movie’s success. (It doesn’t hurt, either, that Saks has suffused the proceedings with a handful of laugh-out-loud funny bits and sequences, with the movie’s high-water-mark an absolutely hilarious scene in which Felix clears his sinuses at a busy restaurant.) The pervasively amiable atmosphere goes a long way towards compensating for the periodic lulls within the narrative (there is, for example, a double-date interlude that just seems to go on and on), while the satisfying final stretch ensures that the whole thing concludes on a thoroughly positive note – with the end result an agreeable comedy that’s improved immeasurably by Lemmon and Matthau’s superlative efforts.

*** out of ****