Jack Lemmon runs a clothing design company he's trying to keep above water, by any means necessary. Escorts for a rep from a clothing store company? Sure. Burn down one of his factories to collect the insurance money? You betcha.
He's also clearly got a lot of shit running around inside his head he hasn't addressed in any substantive way. Stuff from fighting in Italy in World War 2. Money worries. His marriage seems. . .not great. His daughter's in a private school in Switzerland and he misses her. He's extremely fixated on the past, especially before the war. Talking about how baseball used to be, trying to construct hypothetical lineups for given seasons.
One of his employees describes him as a "playback" machine, who simply spits out whatever anyone needs to hear to end the conversation and keep the day moving forward. That's really all he's trying to do most of the time, is just get through the day in one piece. Company intact, maybe sanity intact. So that he can start all over again the next day.
Jack Lemmon's always been good at playing that kind of harried, frazzled guy. The type who either isn't good at handling stress gracefully, or else is dealing with just a bit more than he can handle. It's usually played for comedy, this schlub trying to keep the plates spinning and failing in hilarious fashion. Here, it's a tragedy. Every interaction is a transaction. If he tells someone they should get together for dinner sometime, it's like an olive branch he extends because he said something harsh earlier and he might need them again. Can't burn that bridge.
The one connection he makes is with a woman in her 20s, who spends all day just hitching rides up and down. She doesn't worry about tomorrow, or really think about the past. But he can't be like her, except for brief moments. Overall, it's a depressing movie about the exhaustion of trying to keep moving on a conveyor that'll feed you into a wood chipper if you stop running.
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