Small Apartments
Starring: Matt Lucas, Billy Crystal, Juno Temple, James Marsden
Director: Jonas Åkerlund
Rating: 3/5
Jonas Åkerlund is back in the director's chair this week as he adapts Chris Millis' novel Small Apartments for the big screen.
A terrific cast has been assembled with many of them taking on roles that we have never seen them play before.
Franklin Franklin plays the alphorn and dreams of Switzerland. His crazy brother sends him fingernail clippings in the mail.
One of his neighbours is a forgetful pot-head, the other a gruff busybody who doesn't miss anything. Across the street live a mother and her fifteen-year-old daughter, whom he likes to watch from his window, but none of these are Franklin's real problem.
His real problem is that his landlord is dead, laid out on the linoleum of his kitchen, and Switzerland seems farther away all the time.
This is an incredibly brave performance from Matt Lucas - spending the majority of the film in just his underpants makes this an incredibly revealing and naked turn from the actor.
Small Apartments sees Lucas take on his first lead role and first American accent and he delivers Franklin in a way that you cannot help but like him.
He is an incredibly odd character who has murdered his landlord and this could have made him incredibly difficult to like and yet Lucas has played with an innocence and a warmth that really does win you over.
There are an array of famous faces on the cast list as Johnny Knoxville moves away from those obnoxious characters he insists on playing while Billy Crystal tackles the first independent movie of his career.
They all deliver rather intriguing performances but this movie really does belong to Lucas.
Small Apartments is a black comedy that is perhaps one of the quirkiest movies that you will see this year.
But it lacks real depth and too many of the characters are left undeveloped - and that is quite unsatisfying.
This is a brave project for director Jonas Åkerlund to tackle and while it is a movie that you will remember he doesn't quite pull it off.
Small Apartments is out now
Tagged in Matt Lucas