The Tenants is a 2005 film drama starring Dylan McDermott and Snoop Dogg. Screened at only one theatre, the film received harsh criticism due to what some critics discerned as anachronistic depictions of the racial tension between the principal characters and a lack of multidimensionality. Consequently, the film was not screened further, being released on DVD directly after its ill-fated theatre release. The film is an adaptation of a novel of the same name that was published in 1971 by author Bernard Malamud. The film is very loyal to its source material, depicting the labored and... painstakingly slow efforts of main character—Jewish Harry Lesser—in drafting what is to be his third novel. Lesser is the remaining tenant of a dilapidated tenement. The landlord—for reasons not revealed—cannot or does not evict Lesser, though he periodically offers increasing amounts of money to entice Lesser to move. At some point Lesser becomes aware that another tenant—an Afro-American squatter named Willie Spearmint—has taken up residence in the tenement, and that this other tenant is also a writer who has determined to type his book at the tenement as well.
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| Release date: | February 3, 2006 |
| Directed by: | Danny Green |
| Rated: |  |
| Runtime: | 91 Minutes |
| Producer: | Chris Bongirne |
| Editor: | Michael J. Duthie |
| Music by: | Leigh Gorman, Andy Hernandez |
| Cinematography: | David Dubois |
| Screenplay by: | Danny Green, David Diamond |
| Estimated budget: | $2,000,000 |
| Adapted from: | The Tenants |