Noise

Joyce, just divorced from Elliot, is looking for a place to live in New York City, and she has found something nearly ideal. A safe neighborhood, a nice view, upstairs from Hanks's antique store, with only one other neighbor upstairs.

Unfortunately, Charlotte, the upstairs neighbor, likes to play her music loud, and sometimes she plays music when she can't sleep--even at 4 in the morning. She seems mentally unstable, though she has some sort of a publishing job. But at least her music isn't loud music. It's just played loud.

Joyce gets a job as a copy editor for a publisher. Her boss is nice. Joyce seems ideal for such a job because, after her parents died when she was 6, her grandparents raised her to be a perfectionist. But she has too many of her own ideas, and being new at the company, she is discouraged from trying to shake things up.

With her other problems, Joyce has difficulty coping with Charlotte, but in one really weird scene with fast editing and dreamlike sound, friends tell Joyce what to do about Charlotte. And Joyce's boss is actually a friend of Charlotte's--though this may not necessarily help. Eventually, Joyce finds her own solution, which eventually works, but not in the way Joyce had hoped.

Halfway through this movie, I was prepared to say this was one of the worst movie experiences I ever had. But part of the problem was the fact I had an allergy headache, made worse by really hot weather. Perhaps this gave me a special insight into Joyce's state of mind. But I didn't give up. Joyce didn't move, and I didn't turn off the movie because I didn't know when I'd ever see the rest, and I did want to. By the end of the movie, though, I was feeling better, and maybe not just because of the medication. I think the movie actually improved.

I couldn't stand Joyce. This did not necessarily mean Trish Goff gave a bad performance, though a really good actress might have helped me to like the character. As she was, though, I just couldn't care about Joyce. If her whining and constant drinking weren't enough, there was also the support group. Until I saw "divorced women" in the credits, I didn't know what that meant. It might have also helped if Joyce had been played by a good-looking actress. One character said she was beautiful, but she wasn't in my opinion.

Ally Sheedy did a good job, but she wasn't on screen enough. Her character was likable in a quirky way, but it took work. She looked her age early, but later she turned out to be quite a beauty. Giancarlo Esposito also did a good job as antique store owner Hank, who became Joyce's friend and was quite easy to like. I don't know the name of Joyce's boss, but the actress playing her also did a good job.

As to whether this film was really noisy, I found Charlotte's music irritating, but like Joyce, I have a low tolerance for noise, and my situation was even worse the day I saw this. Yet I'm not sure the noise level really communicated how bad it was for Joyce.

In the credits it said this movie was filmed in a quiet place. Strange, considering there wasn't any other comedy to speak of here.

The whole film seemed to have an eerie tone. Maybe some people enjoy a film like this. It's just not what I'm looking for.

A commenter above, Blackwallnut, hit the nail on the head. Ally Sheedy turns in a terrific performance as a neurotic neighbor, and she even comes off as frightening in her last scene. Giancarlo Esposito also does a fine job portraying Hank, the helpful shopkeeper. The problem with the film, however, is the lead--Trish Goff. I thought half the time that she sounded Australian, and, for the most part, her performance lacked emotion. Even when she provided some, it seemed strained and contrived. I also found the British lady with the filthy mouth to be tiresome after a while. With another actress, I suspect we'd have seen a better project. I don't think you can blame the director--unless he cast the lead, of course.

Very early on the film takes on the feel of a meanderingly paced, talky version of 'Pacific Heights", which it self was a meanderingly paced, talky film. Some good performances come through, but not enough to save the film.

A recently divorced woman moves into a new apartment and tries to move on with her life. She soon discovers that her upstairs neighbor likes to crank up the noise at all hours of the night and keep her awake. When civility fails to resolve the problem and outside issues further complicate matters, the young lady must take more drastic steps.

From the start the film is determined to take it's time. Every scene unrolls at a languid pace, almost like it's challenging the audience to stay awake. Long, often pointlessly so, dialogue exchanges continue for what seems like an eternity only to end just in time for yet another needlessly lengthy dialogue exchange.

It would be fair to say that this over-abundance of exposition serves to build tension, except that there is little of no pay off to all the waiting. One could also say that it expounds on the character personalities were it not for that fact that in the end every one is motivated by either petty or unexplained reasons.

The filming matches the script to a 'T'. Aside for the occasional sporadic (actually kind of jarring) jump cuts, the film follows the events as they are, never appearing to be any more interested in what's happening that it needs to be.

The actors are what they are, an art house crowd for the most part. The lead actress is attractive (if REALLY skinny) and does a decent job with a character we have seen many times before. Ally Sheedy tries for neurotic, but comes off annoying.

Art house crowds might dig it's detached vibe, but most audiences will have a hard time ridding it to conclusion.

4/10

**SPOILERS** Interesting little movie about a mental breakdown that's caused by a combination of a noisy neighbor and a deep guilt-complex on the part of young Joyce Chandler, Trish Goff.

Moving into a Manhattan apartment house Joyce is about to start a new life after she broke up with her boyfriend Elliot, David Thornton. Joyce also gets a job with Gothom Press as a proof reader. The first night in her apartment Joyce is tormented with load noise coming from her upstairs neighbor.

The noise ,that continues for a couple of nights, is so nerve wracking that Joyce not only slips a note under the neighbor's door telling her to quite down but also calls the police for help. The neighbor Charlotte Bancroft, Ally Sheely, later knocks on Joyce's door and apologizes for her keeping her awake with her music and then invite her up for tea and cookies which Joyce declines.

At first you think that Charlotte is trying to make up with Joyce over what happened but later she's back again with the stomping and what sounds like military marching music that drives Joyce to the point where she begins to drink herself drunk. The drinking leads Joyce to fall apart on her job and is finally let go by her boss Margret, Jodie Markell, after she gave her a week off without pay in order to get herself together. Joyce's only hope is to get back with Elliot who's in Boston. When she calls him for help Joyce finds that he's living with another woman! This makes her depression get that much more severe. It's also found out through Joyce's talk with Elliot that she had an abortion which she can't face up to and is a major reason for her, what later turns out to be, self-loathing.

You start to realize that Joyce's problems are a lot more serious then the noise from upstairs but it's her focus on Charlotte that makes her forget the other far more crippling psychosis' she's suffering from. Talking it over with her neighbor Hank, Giancorlo Esposito, about what to do with Charlotte. Hank tells Joyce to secretly put her, Charlotte's, name in the local newspaper personal page and have those who answer it pay her a visit and maybe with a little luck she'll find the right person, for Joyce, who'll shut her up for good. Doing what Hank told her Joyce gets more then she bargained for in getting Charlotte the right person who ends up breaking her jaw and putting her in the hospital.

The movie begins to swing away from Charlotte and concentrates on Joyce as the really sick person who's in need of help with her drinking as well as picking up a stranger the creepy Larry ,Dov Davidoff, at the local bar. Not that Charlotte hasn't any serious problems herself she seems to suffer for a very deep sense of rejection and it was Joyce's rejection of her that set her off. That rejection had Charlotte go out of her way to destroy Joyce both financially and emotionally as well.

Charlotte recovering from a severe beating that she suffered from one of her man answering the personal add has Joyce over at her apartment for what at first seems like a friendly talk. The talk quickly escalates into a vicious brow beating of Joyce that leads to something that Charlotte never expected. That's what in he end frees Joyce from the control Charlotte had over her forever.

I saw this film last night as part of the River Run film festival in Winston-Salem, NC and found it to be quite entertaining. The trailer seemed interesting so I figured I'd give it a shot. While watching, you can clearly see the mental breakdown of the main character Joyce and I found it easy to identify with some of her "issues." It has some explicit language and some brief nudity but that shouldn't really be a big problem. A day later, I'm still putting pieces of the movie together in my head. The ending also grabs you at a point where you feel the most vulnerable, much as Joyce is in the movie. All in all, a very good independent film. I recommend it if you have the opportunity to see it.