Many years back, one of the local TV aired a movie that I only got to see the beginning of; for whatever reason, I never got around to watching the whole thing and TCM hasn't run it often enough for me to be able to catch it there (and indeed, hasn't run it since I upgrated to a service with a DVR). That movie is Barefoot in the Park, and having found it on one of the streaming services (I think PlutoTV), I decided to watch it even with the commercial interruptions.
The movie starts off with the honeymoon of Paul (Robert Redford) and Connie (Jane Fonda) Bratter, a young couple who are so madly in love that they can't be bothered to leave their hotel room. But of course the honeymoon is going to have to end, and in this case it's because Paul has to start his new job as the young lawyer at one of those Manhattan law firms. Connie is apparently still from the era when a wife stops working when she gets married even if she doesn't yet have any children to look after. But it's her job to go find an apartment for the couple to live in, something you think they would have done before getting married and moving to the city. Or maybe she did before they got married and the movie doesn't explicitly mention that.
In any case, Connie probably didn't do enough due diligence in picking a place to live, or else the couple just couldn't afford anything better. One of the reasons she's been able to get something so cheap is because it's on the fifth floor of a walk-up apartment building. No wonder it's so cheap; who the heck would want to keep walking up and down that many flights of stairs. There's also the issue of a hole in the skylight and the fact that the apartment seems ridiculously small, with the bedroom being little more than a closet. Connie is so in love that she can live with it until the couple can get settled in. And she's always been a free spirit, so she likes the sense of adventure.
Paul, on the other hand, is more strait-laced. Having said that, neither of them is a bad person; they're just the sort of people with some personality differences but of the sort that in the real world they'd figure out a way to solve the problems maturely. And Paul would probably move up in the firm quickly enough that it wouldn't be too awfully long before he could afford a better place for the couple. But then we wouldn't have a movie
Somewhat on Paul's side is his mother-in-law, Ethel (Mildred Natwick). Now that Connie's gotten married, Ethel is on her own, and Connie does worry about that, sincerely wanting what's best for her, even if Connie has the same conflict with Mom that she does with her husband. But Connie is about to get an ally in the form of Victor (Charles Boyer). He's a professional adventurer, and keeps the garret apartment above the Bratters' place because it's cheap and he's away a lot. Indeed, he needs to go through the Bratter place to get to his apartment, or so he claims. Seems highly illegal to me. Like Connie, however, he's a decided free spirit, and it's obvious that he's going to be interested in Ethel.
Barefoot in the Park is based on a stage play by Neil Simon, and it's one that's filled with contrived situations written solely for laughs. Fans of Neil Simon will enjoy this stuff, although I have to say that for me it's not quite as good as some of his later work, notably The Odd Couple and Plaza Suite. You know you're going to get a happy ending out of all of it, although the climax leading up to that ending is utterly unnatural and didn't work for me. Even with its flaws, however, Barefoot in the Park is definitely worth a watch.
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