Plaza Suite

A film set in a hotel suite in New York. The same room houses three separate stories. The three parts are independent and their only common point is suite 719. In the first there is a couple. Karen has taken the room for their wedding anniversary; they spent their honeymoon here years ago. Sam is not interested. He cannot get away from work, telephones his secretary, and after a while she asks him about it. In the second there is a producer. Jesse has come from Hollywood and invites his childhood sweetheart to the room. Muriel is married and lives in the suburbs. He tries to persuade her and the whole part consists of that negotiation. In the third there is a wedding. Their daughter is to be married in the ballroom downstairs but has locked herself in the bathroom and will not come out. Roy works on the door. The whole part takes place on two sides of it. What the narrative is interested in is not marriage but the same room: each part shows a different stage of a marriage, and the setting staying fixed turns that into a scheme. Walter Matthau plays in all three. A different man each time, and that is the film's central idea. The women are separate. There is a different actress in each part, and the asymmetry unbalances the narrative. The source is Neil Simon's play and the author adapted it himself. The structure is entirely theatrical. The camera does not leave the room and the stage text is barely altered. The third part is the best liked. The narrative moves entirely into physical comedy there. Walter Matthau, Maureen Stapleton, Barbara Harris and Lee Grant are in the cast. Arthur Hiller directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes Neil Simon comedy and adaptations of plays. Who it is not for: anyone expecting cinema; the film never leaves the stage and the second part is plainly uncomfortable today.