Apartment zero

When lonely, uptight cinema owner and film buff Adrian (Colin Firth) advertises for a lodger to share his opulent Buenos Aires apartment, he attracts Jack (Ed Bochner), a suave easy-going American. Before long Adrian is seduced by Jack’s charm and becomes infatuated with him, suffering fits of jealously when Jack befriends the eccentric tenants of neighbouring apartments whom Adrian reviles. Meanwhile, a brutal serial murderer is terrorising the city, the style of the killings suggesting the killer may have been part of the death squad at the service of the former regime. While Adrian and Jack are polar opposites of each other, either one could potentially be the murderer. Like his institutionalised mother, Adrian is psychologically unstable while Jack is concealing a dubious past. Suspense builds to an unexpected climax as the killer’s identity becomes clear. Overly ambitious in its scope the film nevertheless succeeds in creating a brooding homoerotic tension between the two men which is ultimately realised through violence rather than sexual gratification.