After two years working in New York in the 90's, the successful executive Max Mayer (Vincent Cassel) returns to Paris and will sooner get married to his fiancée Muriel (Sandrine Kiberlain). He has a meeting in a restaurant with Japanese executives and then he will travel to Tokyo. However, he glances at a woman leaving a telephone booth and he believes she is Lisa (Monica Bellucci), the greatest love of his life who had disappeared years ago. He finds the key of a Parisian hotel room in the booth and he calls off his trip to Tokyo trying to meet Lisa in the hotel. He sneaks into the empty room; finds an obituary and goes to the cemetery expecting to find Lisa. Then he follows the stranger Daniel (Olivier Granier), whose name he had overheard in the booth cabin, and finds an apartment that he supposes is Lisa address. Meanwhile Max recalls his romance with Lisa in flashbacks. Max borrows the car of his best friend Lucien (Jean-Philippe Écoffey), who is in love with his girlfriend Alice, to go to the apartment wait for Lisa. However, he finds another woman also called Lisa (Romane Bohringer). The mystery is clarified through the flashbacks.

"L'Appartement" is an intriguing thriller about missing encounters, obsession and serendipities with a disappointing and incoherent conclusion. The non-linear screenplay keeps the mystery until the very end. The performances of Vincent Cassel, Monica Bellucci and Jean- Philippe Écoffey are excellent, but the sexy Romane Bohringer steals the movie in the role of an outcast woman obsessed by her only girlfriend. Unfortunately there are many flaws and holes in the story.

The first one is indeed a continuity mistake, with Max's scarf vanishing when meets Lucien in the stairway and in the restaurant, but back around his neck when he goes to the airport.

There are questions not answered: Why Lisa had lodged in a hotel in Paris if she has her own apartment? How Alice financially supports herself? Why Max stays with Muriel in the end? Why Lisa trusted on a single letter, instead of looking for Lucien and asking Max's address in New York and send an ultimate letter?

My interpretation of the plot is that the lonely and needy Alice is obsessed by Lisa and creates all the missing encounters to avoid Lisa to meet Max and leave her alone again. But in the end, she finds that Max desires and loves her and she unexpectedly falls in love with Max. Therefore, she does not need Lisa anymore. However, my interpretation seems to be wrong based on the reaction of Max after reading her diary. But again, Alice is a manipulative woman and the viewer never knows neither what is written in her journal (maybe the real feelings of the true Lisa) nor her conversation without audio with Lisa. Further, Max is a romantic man that has never acknowledged the love of Lisa with him and believe his feelings are unrequited love.

There are references to "Rear Window" and "Single White Female", but nevertheless, the terrible conclusion does not make any sense. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Apartamento" ("The Apartment")

I love French cinema,vraiment,but this sort of slop gives it a bad name. For every zingy,stylish Diva there are sadly many more turkeys like this. Firstly,as others have pointed out,the actors are more given to pouting and exuding existential angst than actually filling out believable characters. I couldn't have cared less about a single one of them,which is a fatal flaw in any film in my book. Implausible,unsympathetic and nauseatingly narcissistic. Worst of all is Monica Bellucci ("ooh,isn't she so yummy?") who swans through the film to no great effect,her role merely to be absurdly gorgeous and act as a hollow erotic talisman for the archetypal passionate yet soft-headed French romantic lead,played by the gormless Cassel. God,I bet they made a riveting couple when they were married. I watched the movie over several sittings as it just did nothing to hold my interest. The flashbacks and changes in perspective succeeded in alienating me and muddying the already creaky plot and were presumably stuck in there to earn the director "cred points" rather than for any coherent artistic effect. Subsequently when it thankfully drew to its close,I was none the wiser about who did what and to whom. Or more importantly why? We are supposed to buy that old French canard (geddit?) about men and women losing their heads pour l'amour. Then again did Max ever really love Alice/Lisa/his fiancée? How did everyone afford to live in such high Parisian style when none appeared to do much work? Where did Alice get her money from anyway? Oh yes,she was a sometime actress as we saw in that superfluous sub-plot about the Midsummer Night's Dream production. Talk about cynically pandering to amateur critics to facilitate guff about " plays-within-plays" and so on! More proof of a director too interested in ticking "art-house film" boxes and flattering the intelligence of his overawed audience. Before the final conflagration in the eponymous flat,I still wondered if perhaps it was I who'd failed to match up to a fine and complex,multi-layered piece of movie-making. Then when I saw the vacant look on Lisa's face as her bloke torched the place followed by the clichéd slow-mo of Max's mate going backwards through the café window,the man behind the curtain was cruelly shown up. It wasn't me after all-this so-called art film is as much an imposter as Alice herself. And it should be put on a plane to Rome one-way forthwith.