A real buried treasure in the Neil Simon canon. Jack Lemmon is a recently laid off New Yorker struggling to make sense of his life while fighting the daily demons of urban living. From nasty neighbors to insensitive relatives, Lemmon is hit with all of it...his life is in a nosedive! Neil Simon's screenplay is very cutting, even more so than in his earlier anti-NYC tirade THE OUT-OF-TOWNERS. Melvin Frank's direction does come off as a bit unimaginative, but that's really because most of the movie takes place in the apartment Lemmon shares with patient wife Anne Bancroft. The acting is excellent, with Lemmon giving a really great performance and Bancroft matching him with both her warmth and, when needed, caustic tongue. The supporting cast includes the great character actor M.Emmett Walsh as well as Elizabeth Wilson, Florence Stanley, and, in a rare acting role, the director Gene Saks, as Lemmon's overly cautious older brother.
