- The Odd Couple (1968) is streaming FREE.
- 97% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes
- Best Screenplay Oscar nominee
- Stars Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon
- Screenplay adapted by Neil Simon from his own Broadway smash hit!
Divorced-and-sloppy Oscar Madison (Walter Matthau) offers his best friend, the anal retentive Felix Ungar (Jack Lemmon), a place to live while facing when Felix is shocked and suicidal after his own wife demands a divorce. Alone with each other and their radically incompatible neurosis, they quickly fall into the extreme behavior patterns that drove their wives away. Love transforms into hate while they vacillate between saving and destroying each other.
The massive success of the play and film spawned a hit television series of the same name (also currently available on Pluto TV) starring Jack Klugman and Tony Randall in the titular roles–as well as a number of films with Lemmon and Matthau officially or unofficially reprising their roles.
The Odd Couple wasn’t the first or the last film to milk mismatched friendship for comedy, but several things set it aside from all the rest. The personalities are extreme but always real. The biggest laughs are always in the low notes, the high notes are always misdirection. And, most importantly, the film never stops being a love story, testifying to the ability of friendship to survive what even marriage can’t.
Delivering good feels without sacrificing honesty, delivering laughs without turning away from drama, The Odd Couple is a movie you should definitely see if you haven’t, and see again if you have. And right now you can do so on Pluto TV.
