I don't mind idiots in my books and movies. Richard is definitely a complete idiot. His vanity is showing almost immediately: when his wife and kid are leaving for a holiday, he thinks it's flattering that his kid is upset. He also thinks his wife is right to be worried about losing her looks (although he doesn't know if she's worried or not), because he himself doesn't look any different than what he looked like when he was twenty-eight, so when she gets older, everybody will think she's his mother.

However, idiots need to be interesting. Even if the characters are trash or the sexual politics are old-fashioned etc., I'm willing to get on board if the writing/plot are good or there's a point to all the messiness. The Seven Year Itch doesn't do anything for me in that regard. Richard is just boring and there's no payoff, or at least any that I can see or appreciate. I never truly cared about anything that happened.

I do like the fact that Richard underestimates The Girl, thinking all the things that men presume about women's behavior, yet in the end he not only feels old because of what she's saying to him, but gets a reality check in other ways as well. I kind of get what Axelrod is trying to do by making Richard seem like a fool, but if he's trying to make an argument about marriages, I can't tell what it is.

I also re-watched the movie and didn't find it particularly funny either (I was very young when I saw it the first time, so I don't remember if I liked it back then), but at least it has beautiful colors and vintage fashion going for it.

"The girl upstairs almost kills me with a cast iron bucket. So I ask her down for a drink. What's wrong with that? If Helen was here, she'd do the same thing."