Noise

Noise boasts, among other things, being in the vein of the Roman Polansky film, The Tennant. My advice is see the Tennant, which is one of the more creepy and trippy psychological dramas you will find. Noise, on the other hand, doesn't know what it wants to be. It falls short of trippiness by sticking to a plot that has few delusions. The ridiculous events of the film really do happen. The characters (especially the most annoying Alley Sheedy) are not believable. The irritability of the "neigbor upstairs" is more like the antics of the old woman from the even more pathetic film Duplex. What you get is an attempt at a funny film that isn't funny. It strives to be Duplex which itself was just annoying. Yet the ridiculousness takes away from the lame attempt at being creepy.

You'll love this film if you are looking for something different. This film defies the predictable and carries the viewer into a plot free to surprise us giving us a satisfying cerebral experience. Noise has the complexity, the nuance, the depth, of some of the best films I've seen. I highly recommend it to those looking for a change of pace from your typical Hollywood film. Trish Goff's performance was remarkable considering this was her first effort and she is literally in every scene. Ally Sheedy was fantastic as the antagonist.

The script introduces us to idiosyncratic characters, dialogue with an ear for the vulgar and the literate. The pace of the editing were dead-on. The music and sound design were perfect.

**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.

The film Noise was very enjoyable. I have a very low tolerance for noise so I found it fitting to rent a movie with this title. I'm also a fan of Ally Sheedy and when I saw her name on the credits I picked the movie up immediately. This movie really shows you how irritating noises from a neighbor can actually reduce you to "sheer craziness". I've been in the same situation many times, but the noise came from roommate who had no regard or respect for my privacy. I could identify with the character to a certain degree but the ending was not what I expected at all and will shock the first time viewer a great deal. Please go see this movie, invite your noisy neighbor if you have to. LOL

For originality this film rates high. Lance Doty has crafted a screenplay with loads of potential, and instant appeal to anyone who has had their sleep ruined by rotten neighbors. This premise is taken to psychotic lengths, and could have been much, much better. Unfortunately, director Tony Spiridakis seems to have slept through the whole thing. The pacing and camera-work are flat and colorless. He seems to have cast his actors and then abandoned them to their own devices. The only one up to the task was Ally Sheedy, and if not for her, this film would have fallen flat on it's face. Trish Goff, a model in her first film, is supposed to show us the mental disintegration of a young woman -- by degrees -- her fragile mind under assault from her own failures and alcoholism, with her slow collapse considerably hastened by the psychic torture provided by her upstairs neighbor. But Ms. Goff delivers a performance that would barely get her cast in a high school play. She does not inhabit her character; she has no sense of her psychology, no sense of bringing her incrementally to her breakdown. Ms. Goff brings very little to her role at all except what is already built into the script. As she is the pivotal character, and appears in every scene, the whole business bogs down in her flailing search for an appropriate emotion. If a real actress had been cast in this part, the film might have lived up to its promise. As it is, it will quickly be forgotten.