Plaza Suite (1971)

Plaza Suite is a small, sharp delight: three self-contained New York encounters unfolding in the same Plaza Hotel room, each one a different flavor of love, frustration, and longing, all fueled by Neil Simon’s elegantly barbed wit. The real hook is Walter Matthau, who doesn’t just play three roles—he finds three distinct rhythms of humanity, making each segment feel like a fresh conversation you can’t stop listening to. The tone is urbane, funny, and quietly bruised, the kind of comedy that earns its laughs by recognizing how messy people get when they want to be loved. If you prefer big plots and cinematic spectacle, it may feel stagey by design, but if you like smart dialogue, impeccable timing, and performances that make a room feel alive, this is an easy evening to recommend.

Plaza Suite is clearly trying to bottle Neil Simon’s bittersweet, relationship-focused humor in a neat three-act format, using the Plaza Hotel suite as a clever connecting thread and giving Walter Matthau a showcase in multiple roles. The problem is it often feels like you’re watching a filmed play rather than a movie—talky, confined, and uneven, with a first segment that can land as more deflating than funny. When the jokes don’t pop and the chemistry isn’t consistently sparkly, the whole thing can feel flatter than it should for a romantic comedy-drama. If you enjoy actor-driven, dialogue-heavy stage adaptations and can live with hit-or-miss sketches, there’s some charm to be found; if you want cinematic energy and reliably sharp laughs, this may test your patience.