Listen to this figure: Last year, I did 34 commercials, 5 music videos, and “Small Apartments.” Usually, that’s not how you do a movie. You stop and you focus on everything.

Franklin’s apartment is flanked on one side by the curmudgeonly Mr. Allspice (the late James Caan, steely as ever), a retired painter who hates his fellow renter’s music and spends every frame ...