2 out of 5

Directed by: Natalie Erika James

Setting aside the eternal “why remake this?” question, as well as the remake / prequel journey it went through, let’s just try to assess Apartment 7A on its own terms, and I’ll start with an observation that’s quite indicative of the film: the titular apartment doesn’t get much focus. When our lead enters the building we would presume to house said apartment, there’s not much gravity to how the building is shot, or any real sense of what we’re supposed to feel as she navigates the lobby. While the subsequent events are interesting, we end up primarily bouncing between three apartments… and you never quite get that hero shot telling you that 7A+is more important than the other two.

Extrapolate, and: Apartment 7A is not a movie without some worthwhile elements, but both the script and visuals are confused as to what the focus is – of the story itself or the tone – which allows for very quality actors to kind of flounder during important scenes, and key sequences to fall flat and sit side by side with the rest of the movie. And yet, there’s clear professionalism on display that prevents it from feeling bad; rather, you’re likely not to feel much of anything.

Juliet Garner plays Terry Gionoffrio, a struggling dancer in New York who’s working her way through greater heights in her dream profession… until an ankle injury waylays her, and makes her something of a pariah in her scene.

Director Natalie Erika James introduces some of the story’s otherworldly elements early on, in a dreamlike transition sequence from Gionoffrio’s injury to the hospital – blending Terry’s dance routine with mixed up memories of her surgery and recovery. While I think setting this framing right from the start is a valid approach, the film’s uncertain tone is also set, with incredibly slick staging and production disconnected in various ways from the music (Adam Price, Peter Gregson), the editing (Andy Canny), the cinematography (Arnau Valls Colomer), and the acting; each, in turn, feels like it’s aiming for something slightly different – something more gothic, or something in league with quick-cut modern day horror, or something paying more tribute to the original. As to our actors, Garner, who’s almost always excellent oddly severly underplays Gionoffrio, as though directed being told that all those other pieces – music, editing, etc. – would add the necessary drama to her part. Wild things happen to this girl, and she just… doesn’t respond. Elsewhere, we have Dianne Wiest treating this like a Mel Brooks parody, and Jim Sturgess is miscast (and then also underused) as the suave producer Alan Marchand, who Terry is out to impress – Sturgess just doesn’t have the gravity for the role, though the script (or the way it was edited) hardly gives him the screentime to create it, much like Apartment 7A’s missing place in the movie overall.

So Terry is injured, but she gets a shot auditioning for Marchand by sneaking into his building, and then Minnie and Roman (Wiest and Kevin McNally), who also live in the building, decide to take Terry under their wing, even putting her up in an apartment. And then some of the weirdness foretold in that original dream starts to come to bear: perhaps Alan, Minne, and Roman expect something more of Terry in exchange for what they each offer; perhaps there’s something evil going on in the building…

At 104 minutes, Apartment 7A at least does not suffer from modern cinema bloat, and if you just look at it purely on a surface level, there are some well managed sequences. They don’t necessarily add up into a compelling film, but you’ll be able to spot how the math could have worked, and that promise allows one to keep watching.