Director Roman Polanski stars (uncredited) in this darkly comic study of paranoia and alienation in modern-day Paris, themes richly expanded from his earlier "Repulsion" and "Rosemary's Baby". A nebbish clerk is anxious to rent an empty flat in Paris even though the previous occupant committed suicide by jumping from the window; he soon learns his neighbors have a strict 'no noise' policy, his creepy landlord doesn't want him to have any visitors, and that users of the communal washroom tend to stare at the hieroglyphics on the walls as if they are in a trance. Working with screenwriter Gérard Brach from Roland Topor's novel, Polanski weaves an unsettling, hypnotic web of assumed deceits and confusions before going over the top into full madness. This last portion of the plot is the most problematic, for we can see where the movie is headed and yet crave for more answers in the narrative. When Polanski (apparently) sees the washroom for the first time, he has already lived in the apartment for some time; instead of being drawn into the scenario, we are instead asking "where has he been using the bathroom all this time?" The supporting players are mostly used as ghouls, except Isabelle Adjani (resembling a brunette Molly Ringwald in glasses) as a sexy intellectual who can't break through to Polanski's increasing despair. The filmmaker's subdued performance is marvelously controlled and layered, and the look of the picture is fabulously gloomy, but the third act is too rough around the edges to mark the effort as a Polanski classic. **1/2 from ****
Review of The Tenant
