84m²

Wall to Wall starts with an intriguing premise and a strong visual atmosphere, but it quickly loses momentum due to pacing issues and overcomplicated plotting. The film stretches its runtime with unnecessary subplots and minor characters that don't contribute meaningfully to the main story.

The core mystery-centered around mysterious noises and psychological tension-had potential, but the reveal feels unconvincing, and the villain's motivation comes off as forced and illogical. Instead of a tight psychological thriller, we're left with a bloated narrative that tries to say too much, yet doesn't fully commit to any of its ideas.

Woo Sung is an ordinary office worker in his 30's. He has succeeded in buying his own apartment, which was his lifelong dream. To buy the apartment, he used all of his savings.

Wall to wall would have been improved if it were a far more simplified, less complicated tale. The tonal changeover, from psychological thriller to high-concept conspiracy, makes it lose some of the effect it has so diligently built up in the first half.

Despite the incredible performances in this thriller, the foundation it rests upon starts to crumble once things run out of steam. And Every attempt the movie makes to one-up itself has the opposite effect.

Not exactly sure how to feel about this. The premise is good, the first half of the movie is good but then it kinda falls off after the second half.

The acting of the protagonist is so nice that he is probably the reason you wanna keep watching the movie.

It just feels like the execution of the movie could be... better I guess.

Still, not that bad.

Woo-sung's life goal is to own an apartment Seoul at an overpriced rate as he firmly believes, having one's own apartment is what all he needs to lead an happy life. The overpriced apartment he bought, comes with noisy upstairs neighbours while the ones below believe it's Woo-sung who is noisy. Years later, Woo-sung is in debt, only has the noisy apartment and is lured by his colleague into a scheme where he invests everything for unbelievable 800% ROI which he needs to sell it off on Liberation Day. With the noise getting him sleepless, will he be able to prove to his neighbours that he is not culprit and mainly, will he succeed in his plan amidst all challenges, forms rest of the story.

The film which is an attempt at stark commentary on the capitalism, has the story focus on Woo-sung's two woes - the unending noise which paints him as the noisy neighbour to almost and his financial mess that forces him to come up with the theory of real estate scam. While the whole segment of him having the invest in a scheme which is basically all his money so that he can sell it on the said time without wasting a second, was completely intriguing given the circumstances. It only made up for half of the film and the remaining went back to the noise problem.

The whole reveal on the real culprit and the whole conspiracy theory was sprung at the viewers rather less convincingly. It is essentially when the story makes way for other characters while up until then it remained a one man show with Woo-sung's predicament, getting stuck on that apartment and having to lose everything - financially and mentally. I wish the drama with the neighbours was prolonged along with the whole Liberation Day segment instead of ending it half way. Overall, the idea is decent enough to command a one time watch but the film could have been executed better in the last hour with a better arc for the antagonist.

As "Wall to Wall" (2025 release from South Korea; 118 min.; original title "84 m2") opens, we are in "Seoul 2021" and as we watch Seoul's endless sea of skyscrapers, Noh Woo-sung purchases a small condo measuring 84 square meters (900 sqaure feet). We the go to "Seoul, August 2024" and Woo-sung struggles to keep up with his mortgage, maintenance fees and other expenses. On top of that, he notices strange noises coming from his neighbor below. Or is it his neighbor upstairs? At this point we are 10 minutes into the movie.

Couple of comments: houses, condos and apartments in Asia are typically a lot smaller than what we are used to in the West, and certainly in the US, where there is never-ending space everywhere except a few major cities like New York and Chicago. This South Korean movie starts out as your typical drama: how to deal with noise pollution presumably coming from your neighbors. But the movie morphs into something quite different in its second hour. This movie is super plot-heavy so the less about that, the better and I won't spoil any of it. I quite enjoyed the second half of the movie, more so than the first half. The non-names cast (for me anyway) does quite well. And of course Seoul, itself a character in the movie, is an amazing place.

"Wall to Wall" started streaming in Netflix about a week ago. I happen to read a positive review of it in the British weekly The Economist, and that was good enough for me to check it out. The movie is currently rated 62% Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and that sounds about right to me. If you are in the mood for a foreign drama/thriller about life in a small condo set in a skyscraper, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.