The Apartment

The Apartment (L'Appartement, 1996) is a French-Italian-Spanish co-production that marked the directorial debut of Gilles Mimouni, working from his own screenplay. Vincent Cassel, Monica Bellucci and Romane Bohringer head the cast.

Max is a young, contented businessman on the verge of marriage. Just as he is about to fly to Japan to close a deal, he thinks he spots Lisa, a former lover, in a bar. That fleeting glimpse stirs feelings he believed long buried, and he drops everything to track her down. His search leads him from one surprise to the next, above all through Alice, a friend of Lisa's who secretly harbours feelings for Max herself. As deceptions and misunderstandings pile up, the story weaves romance with the mounting tension of a thriller, much of it unfolding around the apartment of the title. The film later received an American remake, Paul McGuigan's Wicker Park (2004). It was also on this shoot that Cassel met his future wife Bellucci.