The Apartment Pt. 2

Now that we've all but finished viewing The Apartment I realize that seeing the film in halves had its benefits. Around the middle of the movie, when Fran overdoses on sleeping medication in Baxter's apartment, Baxter undergoes a distinct shift in character. In the first half of the story it's Baxter's supervisors who truly own his apartment, but when his boss makes him responsible for Fran's health during the second half Baxter takes the reins.

It's interesting that it takes love for Baxter to claim ownership of his home. By claiming ownership I mean forcing out a supervisor who attempts to "christen" his apartment while he's still there nursing Fran, as well as using the place and its amenities for himself. These actions stand in contrast to occasions earlier in the film when Baxter simply vacates his apartment for his superiors' sexual endeavors at a moment's notice. Because Fran is the one to turn this habitual abandonment around, I believe that all Baxter needed in order to assert himself was someone to care about. Once he is given responsibility for a human Baxter takes responsibility for his apartment and himself. It's almost as if Fran were a key, something that Baxter had sorely missed earlier in his life. Not necessarily her womanliness--after all, Baxter brings a girl back to the apartment before discovering Fran--but that innate sense of affectionate duty that accompanies love. Because Fran's overdose is the catalyst for every outward event that occurs in the second half of the film, it must lead to this inward shift in Baxter.