RENT CONTROL

It is not easy living in New York these days, especially if your wife has left you for a cosmetician, your child is roaming Canada in a camper, girls turn you down in rapid succession and you are a writer without inspiration. And if you don't have an apartment, you might as well give up — unless you are Leonard Junger.

Every once in a while, a gem of a film presents itself from an exceedingly unlikely source and astonishes an unsuspecting reviewer with its power to please. Director Gian Luigi Polidoro's mirthful interpretation of life as the pursuit of a good, cheap New York City apartment is a first-rate comedy that defies its threadbare production budget and no-name cast.