Next Door

If you’ve ever engaged much in recreational drinking, the chances are that you’ve experienced mornings when even the simplest things felt like too much to deal with and the previous nights’ events were nothing but a fuzzy blur. This will give you some idea how poor Chan-woo (Oh Dong-min) feels when he comes to with his head thumping. His situation is rather more disturbing, however, as he soon realises that he is not in his own apartment but in the one next door, and that there’s a body on the floor, sprawled out in a pool of blood.

Developed as a graduation film and supported by additional funding, which really shows onscreen, Yeom Ji-ho’s comedic thriller centres on this tiny space but is complicated by events around it. Chan-woo’s initial instinct to flee the scene (not knowing, after all, if he could be responsible) sees him founder when he realises that he has left his phone there, so has to break back in. This involves a rather extreme method which not only generates tension in itself but pays tribute to early comedy films which have clearly influenced the film’s tone.

This is one of those situations in which practically everything that could go wrong does. The landlady is constantly in and out of the hallway or on the phone, finally responding to complaints which Chan-woo has been making for ages. A man comes to fix the boiler in his flat. Members of a religious sect visit every apartment in the building in an effort to spread their message. On top of all this, he desperately needs to get back to his own flat before 6pm so that he can apply for an exam – his sixth attempt to become a police officer.

The learning which Chan-woo has acquired during the course of his studies enables him to make an assessment of the scene in the neighbouring apartment and try to reconstruct what happened there. There’s an element of humour to this too, however, as Yeom demonstrates that the eager trainee is not as smart as he thinks he is and that events don’t always unfold in the neat way we see on TV crime programmes. In fact, nothing here is quite what it seems and there’s a suggestion that we only ever see a small fragment of a much bigger situation.

For a first film, this directed with considerable assurance. The plot feels contrived at times, relying on our hero’s stupidity, but for the most part it hangs together, and Oh is a naturally gifted lead. it’s really his performance, rather than the twists and turns of the story, which will keep your eyes on the screen. He embraces his character’s less likeable traits and uses them to present us with somebody who is all the more human and sympathetic as a result. The comedic aspects of his performance encourage viewers to let their guard down, so that when we see him in danger, it really has an impact.

A likeable little film, if not as substantial as it might have been, Next Door, which screened at Fantasia 2022, speaks well to the talents of those involved and may make you think twice before you next head out for a heavy drinking session.